
Glass _ 
Book_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



\ 



S^G 



^^t^ 



iriZ/ ae).^ 



HISTOE,"^ 



OF THE 



t 



uuiiTe 






OR, 



PILGRIM FATHERS. 






THE HISTORY 



OF 



THE PRIMITIYE YANKEES; 



OR, 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



IN 



ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 

/ 

By WILLIAM MACOK COLEMAN. 



A rogjie in grain 

Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

— The Princess. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. ; 

CoLLTMBiA Publishing Company. 

1881. 



>- 



n 



A f 'O 



YY^r 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1881, by 

WILLIAM MACON COLEMAN, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congi-ess, at Washington. 






—Press of Biifus H. Darby. 



I 



./^ 



7 



yy 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



The Yankees claim descent from the English Pul'itans— The claim 
false— -The Primitive Yankees repudiated and their punishment in- 
sisted upon by the Puritans in England— The first Yankee a man 
named Brown — The original Yankees called Brownists after him — 
Brown teaches the doctrines of the German Anabaptists— The testi- 
mony of Thomas Scott, Ephraim Pagitt and Robert Baillie— The 
doctrines of the German Anabaptists— Community of goods and 
free love — Storke, Muncer and "Tailor John " — The foreign Ana- 
baptists driven out of England — Relation of the Brownists to the 
Family of Love — Doctrines of the Family of Love— Strype — David 
Joris and Henry of Amsterdam — The Yankees organize themselves 
in a sand-lot or gravel-pit at Islington— The first meeting of Yankees 
ever held— Brown modifies the expression, but retains the substance 
of the free love and communistic doctrines of the Anabaptists — 
Sketch of Brown's life— Condition of England favorable to Brown's 
demagogism— Robertson — Brown organizes secret societies— He is 
confined in thirty-two different jails for his seditious practices— Neal 
and the Biographia Britannica— Fletcher — Brown and his gang of 
Primitive Yankees driven out of England — They carry their carpet- 
bags into Holland— The Brownists' view of marriage— Baillie, Bishop 
Hall and Thomas White— Brown recants and receives an appointment 
—His treachery to his followers— Stillingfleet— Fuller's personal 
knowledge of Brown— Strype— Brown a wife-beater — Divorces him- 
self from his wife — Dies in jail at last— Barrow succeeds Brown as 
second chief of the Primitive Yankees — Barrow a broken-down bank- 
rupt and gambler— Hanged at Tyburn— Testimony of Neal, Strype, 
Bishop Hall, Doctor Bancroft, and Francis Bacon — Specimens of 
Barrow's revolutionary teachings— Evidences from Puritan divines 
that they repudiated the Primitive Yankees— Giflard—ISTicols— The 
Ministers' Protestation— The defence of the Puritans in reply to 
Oxford— Rutherford, Presbyterian professor of theology at St. An- 



iV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

drew's — The Puritans in favor of the passage of the bill under which 
the Brownists or Yankees were driven out of England— Finch — The 
opinions of Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Robertson, Chalmers, Burke, 
and Chief Justice Marshall— Francis Johnson, the third chief of 
the Primitive Yankees— The Brownists the same under Barrow 
and Johnson as under the original author and founder — Neal, 
Strype, Baillie, Mosheim and Oldmixon — Brown considered as a 
"prophecy" or "t^^ical form"— An educator, a free lover, a believer in 
higher law, a martyr who never suffered, could express his belief un- 
der any formula, a tramp preacher, a Christian statesman — Brown's 
memory not honored according to his merit — Johnson leads the 
second installment of carpet-baggers into Holland— The Pilgrim 
Fathers settle at Amsterdam — Particular statement of the doctrines 
for the teaching of which the Brownists were expelled from England 
— Wranglings of the Pilgrim Fathers among themselves at Amsterdam 
— Johnson's rich widow with corked shoes— Johnson quarrels with 
his father and brother on her account and excommunicates them — 
Johnson a "most frailfull and villanous pastor"— La wne's descrip- 
tion of his congregation— Thomas White's " Discovery "—Good-wife 
Colegates charges deacon Bowman with peculation in the deaconship 
— Stolen waters tasted by Geoffrey Whiteacres and Judith Holder — 
Whiteacres justifies— Elder Studley caught behind a hamper basket 
in a place where he ought not to have been— Studley justifies likewise 
—One M. M., another saint, escapes through a window at the same 
kind of a place— Studley excuses, alleging the example of St. Paul, 
who was let down inabasket— Johnson justifies bundling with another 
man's wife— Studley (the elder) justifies his uncleanness with his 
step-daughter by quoting from Solomon — Studley makes obscene 
rhymes which Mistress May sings— The Pilgrim Fathers also tie up 
their grown female servants by the thumbs and whip them stark-naked 
— Elder Studley, William Bareboues and other Pilgrim Fathers pros- 
ecute White for libel and slander on account of these charges- 
White proves his charges in open court and the Pilgrim Fathers have 
to pay the costs— Poets and poetasters' wit— The Pilgrim Fathers 
intermeddle in the affairs of the Dutch — The correspondence with 
Junius — John Robinson arrives at Amsterdam — More quarrelling — 
Robinson eggs it on— Takes part himself— The patience of the Dutch 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. V 

wearing out — The Pilgrim Fathers not getting along well— They 
conclude to emigrate — Different propositions considered — They 
ask the Dutch for permission tjo settle at New Netherlands — 
Permission refused — They send agents to England to ask per- 
mission to settle in Virginia — The Pilgrim Fathers recant, in 
hopes of obtaining this permission — Permission refused — They 
counsel again and determine to steal the lands of the Dutch at 
the mouth of the Hudson — They embark in this filibustering enter- 
prise with some London adventurers — They sail like buccaneers — The 
Dutch out-general them — The captain of the Mayflower lands 
them at Cape Cod to their great surprise and vexation— False his- 
tory — The Pilgrims did not emigrate on account of religious i^ersecu- 
tion — They received no consideration from the Dutch— Eobinson held 
in no esteem in Holland — Misrepresentations by Prince — Bancroft 
follows Prince— Eobinson 's famous "fast, or farewell sermon," a 
forgery by Gov. Winslow— Retrospect of Robinson's life— Leaves 
the Church of England because he could not get an appointment — 
Wars against this same church for fifteen years— Doctor Ames con- 
verts him back to communion with it— Probable causes of his conver- 
sion—Fruits of it— Free beer and wine — Maurice and Barneveldt — 
Robinson sides with despotism against constitutional government — 
Becomes one of the inferior creatures of Maurice — Joins the pack 
against Barneveldt and helps to hound him to the death — But receives 
no reward for his services— Dies a disappointed man in obscurity and 
extreme poverty. 



PREFATORY. 



There are no events connected with the history of this 
country which have been so grossly misrepresented as those 
which are considered in this volume. And it is with a view 
of correcting these false statements and established traditions, 
and of exposing the arrogant pretentions which have grown 
out of them, that these investigations are given to the public. 
The author has no apology to make. He has naught exteiif 
uated nor aught set down in malice. He has honestly en- 
deavored to arrive at the facts by drawing from the purest 
sources of information. The principal authorities cited and 
those which are relied upon are contemporary writers of the 
highest reputation. Il" the evidence does not give a flattering 
picture of The Primitive Yankees the reporter of the evidence 
is not to blame. 

Washington, D. C, 1881. 



THE HISTORY 



OP 



THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; 

OB, 

THE PILGRIM FATHERS 

IN 

ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 



The descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock claim 
to derive their origin from the English Puritans. They allege 
that these English Puritans laid the foundations of civil and 
religious liberty for mankind at large. And they hold it to be 
their proper mission on earth to carry forward and to com- 
plete the work which, as they say, their ancestors began. 

They have notified the world of this claim with sufficient 
frequency and distinctness. It has been the ground-tone of 
the countless thousands of their sermons, speeches, and 
orations. It has inspired their more than ten thousand poets. 
For two hundred years the changes have been rung upon it 
from the annual commencements at Harvard down to the 
children's exhibitions in the country school-houses. Their 
churches have founded upon it and attempted to justify their 
intermeddling in the name of God and humanity. Their liter- 
ature finds no theme so rich in pecuniary rewards. Their 



8 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR^ 

hiBtorians revel in giving it expression. And their politicians — 
how they have availed themselves of it to cover their robber- 
ies, let the history of this country tell. 

This claim of descent from the English Puritans is fraud- 
ulent. It is utterly destitute of any basis of facts to support 
it. On the contrary, the truth is, that the Pilgrim Fathers 
were repudiated, bastardized, cast out, by these self -same Puri- 
tan worthies who are now boasted as progenitors. 

If it should be asked why this claim has been allowed to 
pass so long unchallenged the answer is, that it is because 
nobody has been particularly interested in denying it. Then, 
after all, the Puritan is not savory, and a pedigree traced to 
this source has not been universally regarded as a legitimate 
cause of envy to those who possess no title to such a lineage. 

The first question with which this history will occupy itself 
will be : 

Who was the first Yankee ? 

We will take the trail at Cape Cod. 

It will hardly be denied that the cargo which the Mayflower 
discharged at this spot were Yankees. But if Yankees there, 
they were undoubtedly Yankees at the place of embarkation 
in Holland ; and if Yankees in Holland, they were also Yan- 
kees in England before their first emigration. And if we 
can show the author and founder of this sect in England, we 
have then run down the primitive individual we are in pursuit 
of. 

It will be interesting to hunt up the genuine original Jacob. 
It will be more interesting still to find him and to ascertain 
what manner of man he was. If we can succeed in the 
search, the result will be something more valuable than the 
gratification of mere curiosity ; for, as the physical features 
of the natural ancestor are imparted to those who proceed 
from him, so the dispositions and habits of the founder of a 
sect are invariably stamped, in a greater or less degree, upon 
his moral offspring. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 9 

The primordial Yankees, as we shall see^ were driven out 
of England on account of their communistic doctrines and 
their dangerous demagogism. They sought a refuge in Hol- 
land because of their sympathy with the remnants of the 
Anabaptists and of the Family of Love which still existed in 
that country. They turned Holland upside down with their 
own ceaseless wranglings and their proselyting spirit. They 
abused the hospitality of the Dutch by interference in their 
affairs. They devised a scheme to rob them of their lands 
on the Hudson. They engaged in a joint-stock filibustering 
expedition with some London adventurers to carry this scheme 
into effect, which treachery was thwarted by the vigilance of 
the Dutch in arranging with the captain of the Mayflower to 
carry the filibusters to Cape Cod, instead of landing them at 
Manhattan. 

To establish these facts it will not be necessary to rely upon 
ungodly historians or Church of England clergymen. The 
principal and conclusive evidence will be that of Puritan 
divines and of their own writers. 

The first Yankee, then, was a man by the name of Brown, 
and the first meeting of Yankees which ever took place on 
the planet was held in a sand-lot, or rather a gravel-pit, at 
Islington, near London. These primitive Yankees were called 
Brownists, after the name of their founder. 

The doctrines of Brown were, in the main, essentially those 
of the Anabaptists, and especially of that branch of the Ana- 
baptists known as the Family of Love. 

This will appear from a comparison of the respective doc- 
trines themselves, and is also further evidenced by the judg- 
ments of contemporary writers. 

Thomas Scott says: "The chameleon is in England a 
Familist," (Family of Love,) "at Amsterdam a Brownist." 

Ephraim Pagitt, a clergyman of the Church of England, 
distinguished for his learning and for his classical acquire- 
ments, says, in his Heresiography, published in 1 646 : " Now? 



10 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

however, the Brownists agree with the Anabaptists in many 
things." 

Robert Baillie, a minister of the Scotch church, at Glas- 
gow, says in his Dissuasive from the Errours of the Times? 
published in 1646 : " The doctrine of the Anabaptists, who 
in great numbers lied over to England, when for their abom- 
inable and terrible Crimes, by Fire and Water and Sword, 
they were chased out of both the Germanies, is so like, and in 
many things so much the same, with the Doctrine of the 
Brownists, that the derivation of the one from the other 
seems to be very rationall." 

' The Anabaptists, according to Melanchthon, were founded 
by one Nicholas Storke and arose in Germany in the times 
of Luther. Storke preached that the saints should possess 
the earth, and that he and his followers were the saints. 

Thomas Muncer was a disciple of Storke. He gathered 
together an immense multitude of followers, variously esti- 
mated at from forty thousand to one hundred thousand, and 
undertook to make communism an actual reality. These went 
marching" over the country, plundering, burning and killing, 
and proclaiming death to all princes and kings. Count Mans- 
field soon headed an army against them and defeated and dis- 
persed them with terrific slaughter. 

But they were not entirely destroyed. In 1532 John 
Becold, a tailor at Leyden, arrived at Munster with a great 
number of believers. Here he issued a proclamation, declar- 
ing a community of goods, and inviting all sympathizers to 
rally to his standard. Great numbers of them flocked to 
Munster. The city was seized, the magistrates were driven 
out or killed, and the commune was established under Tailor 
John, who now made himself a king with great parade and 
pomp. But Tailor John was something greater than a king. 
He was also a prophet; and he pretended to hold direct com- 
munication with God in trances, and to receive from him 
commands for the government of the saints. One of these 
revelations was, "■ that it was the good will of the Father that 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 11 

a man should not be tied to one wife, but should have as 
many as he pleased." We are told that, " the greatest con- 
firmation of this doctrine was the practice of the prophet 
himself, who at once took unto him three wives, and left 
not off until he had fifteen." We are also told that " it was 
now accounted a matter of praise to have many wives," and 
that " all the handsome women in Munster were besieged with 
the solicitations of the brethren, seeking who should be first 
served." 

Tailor John's church was of short duration. Count Wal- 
deck captured the city, and the king and prophet suffered 
martyrdom. 

Other leaders followed, but with less success. One Jan 
Wilhelms probably did more stealing and had more wives 
(he had twenty-one) than any of the rest. He died at Utrecht, 
at the hands of the executioner, another witness in the cause 
of freedom of conscience, as he understood it. The names of 
some of his wives have been preserved, viz : '' Elsken Thewes, 
and Elizabeth, her daughter, also Clare and Elizabeth, sisters, 
and daughters of Jan Marsens." 

We have from Pagitt the following illustrative anecdote, 
viz: 

" Gastius reporteth, that a certaine Mayd, of modest 
behaviour, who had dwelt with her master honestly for many 
years, being seduced by the Anabaptists, lived among them, 
and after a moneth returned to see her old Master, who 
saluted her merrily after this manner : Why dost thou suffer 
thyself to be seduced by those impure knaves ? A woman 
having once lost her honesty, what hath she left ? The 
Wench answered, they told me that the Heavenly Father 
commanded it, and therefore I was most obedient in all 
things to all men, and denied no man the duty of spiritual 
marriage that did require it." 

BuUinger, in his work against the Anabaptists, mentions 
the following arguments which they employed to pvercome 
the scruples of those women who resisted their solicitations. 



12 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

viz : that Christians must renounce for Christ's sake those 
things which are most dear unto them, and, therefore, women 
must renounce their beloved honesty ; that for Christ's sake 
we must undergo all manner of infamy ; that publicans and 
harlots shall enter heaven before the Pharisees ; that as all 
were one spirit, so likewise must all be one body. 

In 1535 the Anabaptists who had escaped from Germany 
and Holland began to swarm into England. We find accounts 
of their being punished in England in 1538 and 1539. In 
1575 there was a congregation of them at Algate, of whom 
twenty-seven were arrested. 

Camden, in his Life of Queen Elizabeth, says: " She issued a 
proclamation commanding the Anabaptists, who had flocked 
to the coast towns of England from beyond the seas, under 
color of shunning persecution, to depart the realm within 
twenty days, upon pain of imprisonment and loss of goods." 

The Family of Love, or Familists, as they are sometimes 
called, was an offshoot from the Anabaptists, 

The founder of this sect was one David George, or Joris, of 
the city of Delft. He affirmed that he was, not born of flesh, 
but of the Holy Ghost ; that he was the beloved son, and sent 
to restore the Kingdom of Israel. 

To him succeeded Henry Nicolas, a mercer and man of 
wealth, known also as Henry of Amsterdam. According to 
Rutherford's Survey, he came to England and wrote a let- 
ter to two daughters of Lord Warwick, '' and laboured to 
persuade the maids to a spiritual new birth." 

It was a leading principle with this sect, that they could 
express their doctrines in the formulas of any church or con- 
fession. They held, therefore, that it was folly to suft'er for 
their faith or to come in conflict with the civil or ecclesiastical 
authorities. In Catholic countries they professed themselves 
Catholics ; in England they were nominally adherents to the 
established church ; and in Holland they called themselves 
Reformed. They claimed to reach absolute perfection, and 
tha; those who were illuminated pould not sin in anything 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 13 

thev did. The marriage of such as were not enhghtened was 
filthy and polluted. 

Strype, in his Annals, anno 1574, speaks of the spread of 
the Family of Love in Cambridgeshire. He describes the 
members of this family, as '^ running and frisking from place 
to place, staying for the most part not anywhere long, save 
where they light upon some simple Husbandman whose 
Wealth was greater than his Wit." 

Strype says again, anno 1577: " This year came out in Eng- 
land the letters of Henry Mcolas, founder of the sect of the 
Family of Love." 

Strype again says, anno 1579: '^The Family of Love ap- 
peared in the diocese of the Bishop of Norwich." 

And it was at Norwich, and among these people, that 
Brown established his first congregation, as we shall presently 
see. 

The fifteenth point of their doctrine, as published by them- 
selves and given by Strype, is : "A man ought not to weary 
his body in Travel and Labour;" for they said : " The Holy 
Ghost would not tarry in a Body that was weary and irk- 
some." 

These were the sources and such the originals out of which 
flowed the gospel which Brown preached in the sand-lot or 
gravel-pit at Islington. It is to be understood, however, that 
Brown did not proclaim it in its pristine vigor and purity. 
Prudential considerations had made some changes in the ex- 
ternal form necessary. The authority of the Queen could not 
be openly set at defiance, but it could be covertly attacked and 
undermined by means of a religious pretext. A community 
of goods could not be declared in plain language, but a 
church founded on principles which would lead to this result 
could be claimed as the only true church of God. Nor could 
a community of women be preached openly as an article of 
faith, but a doctrine of marriage and divorce could be de- 
vised which would equally justify the amours of the saints. 
All this Brown well understood. 



14 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

Bredwell, a distinguished Puritan, writing against the 
Brownists, says, as quoted ])y Hanbury : '' Of my adversa- 
ries, I rather know their nature than their number. Although 
sundry among them, from time to time, have labored to be 
leaders, so upon the spur of emulation have galloped as hard 
as they could; yet without all question, there is none among 
them that can justly take the garland from Hobert Brown. 
Let them not disdain, therefore, that he should bear the name 
as the father of that family and brood." 

Stillingfleet says : " R. Brown, from whom the party 
received their denomination," &;c. 

Pagitt says : " These Sectaries are called Brownists, from 
one Master Robert Brown, a Northamptonshire man, who 
was a School-master of the Free Schoole of St. Olaves in 
South-wark. This Brown, seducing certain people, preached 
to them in a Gravel-pit near Islington. Also when his whim- 
seys came first into his head, he was advised by some of his 
friends to confer with Master Fox; and having been with 
nim he reported that he had been with a madman, who thrust 
him out of his doors, telling him he would prove a fire-brand 
in God's church." 

This meeting between Brown and Fox is worthy of note, 
because it was an interview between the first Yankee and 
the first Quaker. • Yankee^Nand Quakers met afterward and 
the Yankees had their revenge. 

The biography of Brown is interesting. Brown was a 
prophecy; he was a typical form. 

Neal, in his History of the Puritans, calls attention to 
Brown in the year 1580. Neal says : " He was first a school- 
master and then lectured at Islington ; but being a fiery, hot- 
headed young man, he went about the country inveighiug 
against the discipline and ceremonies of the church, and 
exhorting the people by no means to comply with them. He 
was first taken notice of by the Bishop of Norwich, who com- 
mitted him to the custody of the sherifi" of the county in the 
year 1580, but upon acknowledgment of his ofience he was 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 15 

released." The bishop complained of Brown, that " he hath 
greatly troubled the whole country, and brought many to great 
disobedience of all laws and magistrates." 

The condition of England at this time rendered it an invit- 
ing field for the enterprises of demagogues. The revolution, 
which only ended with the second James, had. in etfect, 
begun. The limits of the royal prerogative had not yet been 
defined. Elizabeth was stretching them to an extent which 
her imperious father would have deemed unsafe. A certain 
feeling of unrest and insecurity pervaded the orderly classes 
of society. The title of the Queen to the throne was in dis- 
pute. She had powerful enemies abroad and secret foes of 
ability and influence at home. In the religious aspect, her 
situation was still more precarious. She was the head of the 
Protestant Church. It was this that constituted her strength. 
Could it be shown that the establishment of which she was 
at the head loas not a church at all, the dreams of the dema- 
gogues would be realized. The revolution would then receive 
a fresh accession of fury, a harvest of appropriations and con. 
fiscations would follow, and the demagogues would reap their 
rewards in a share of the public plunder. 

Further: the seizure of the abbey lands by Henry VIII 
had created the proletariat in England. The number of the 
unemployed poor and of those who barely subsisted by their 
daily labor was very large. A statute of Elizabeth, 1571, 
throws some light upon this subject. This statute was in- 
tended to furnish employment for the people in the manu- 
facturing of wool. The statute provided that all, except the 
nobility and some few others, should on all Sabbath days and 
holy-days wear woolen caps. The preamble set forth, that 
there were "vast numbers of poor and impotent people 
throughout the whole realm * * * * ^ho were like to 
become unprofitable or dangerous to the commonweal, * * 

* * many of whom were gadding through the realm 
practicmg sundry kinds of lewdness." 

Brown was, as the historian Robertson tells us, " a popular 



16 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

declaimer in high estimation." He thought he saw his op- 
portunity j and he went to work after a method, which has 
since become the approved one. He could preach sedition 
and confusion in a general way, but this would end only in 
the barren applause of the mob. To take advantage of the 
insurrectionary spirit and render it effective, it was necessary 
to organize it. The first thing Brown did, therefore, was, as 
we learn from letters in the Lansdowne MSS., to institute 
secret political societies, name them churches, and to hold 
secret meetings. He was engaged in this work in the year 
1581, in the diocese of Norwich. 

In 1582 Brown published a scurrilous book against the 
authorities, in which he employed language inciting to resist- 
ance. For this he. was arrested, but avoided serious difficulty 
by denying that " he was acquainted with the publication of 
the book," though he admitted writing it. Neal says, he 
published the book. 

This leniency appears to have had little effect upon him; 
for we now find him roaming the country, lecturing and in- 
flaming the rabble against the" communion book, the order of 
government,. and the established laws of the realm. Brown 
boasted of having been incarcerated in thirty-two diflerent 
prisons for these offences. " At length," says Neal, " he 
gathered a separate congregation of his own principles, but 
the Queen and her bishops watching them so narrowly they 
were quickly forced to leave the kingdom." This was the 
Norwich congregation. We learn from the Biographia 
Britannica that this congregation consisted principally of 
foreign Anabaptists. 

Fletcher in his History Qt" Independency says: "At 
Norwich, Brown associated himself in the first instance with 
a Dutch congregation," &c. 

Fuller says of Norwich, that it had at this time " almost as 

many Dutch strangers as English natives inhabiting therein." 

Neal continues: " Several of his friends embarked with 

their effects for Holland, and having obtained leave of the 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 17 

magistrates to worship God in their way, settled at Middle- 
hnrg, in Zealand." And this was the beginning of the carpet- 
baggers. 

Baillie says of Brown's doctrine : " That ill-faced child 
will father itself j the lineaments of Anabaptism are clear 
and distinct in the face of Brownism. * * * That 
Brownism is a native branch of Anabaptism is also evident 
from the frequent transition of many from the one to the 
other." 

Marriage with the Brownists was only an ordinary contract, 
requiring neither clergyman nor magistrate. According to 
Bishop Hall, Brown merely " required notices to witnesses 
and then to bed." And says Baillie: '"As their marriages 
are, so, too, are their divorces." Thomas White (of whom 
more hereafter) says: " They hold it lawful for a man to live 
with her that is not his wife." Francis Johnson, the third 
chief of the Brownists, justified bundling with other men's 
wives. 

Brown doubtless expected to find active friends among the 
Anabaptists and the Love Family in Holland. But in this he 
was disappointed. ISTor was he more successful in proselyt- 
ing the natives. Meeting with nothing but defeat and disap- 
pointment abroad, he returned to England. Immediately 
upon his arrival he renounped his principles, made his dutiful 
submission to the established church, and was appointed rec- 
tor in Northamptonshire. 

Fuller was personally acquainted with Brown. He says in 
his Church History : '' For my own part, I have, when a 
youth, often beheld him. He was of an imperious nature, 
offended if what he affirmed in common discourse were not 
instantly received as an oracle. He had in my time a wife 
with whom for many years he never lived; parted from her 
on some distaste." 

Brown finally succeeded, after all, in dying in jail. Fuller 
gives the incident as it was related to him by the parish con- 
stable who made the arrest. 



18 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

It seems that Brown's taxes were due and that the consta- 
ble, whose duty it was to collect them, called upon him for 
payment. Brown flew into a passion and struck the constable. 
He was arrested for the assault and battery, and brought before 
a neighboring justice of the peace, Sir Rowland St. John. 
The justice would have dismissed the case, but Brown's stub- 
bornness and impudence on the trial would not permit him 
to do so. He was determined to go to jail, and to jail he 
went. A feather-bed on a cart was provided foi* his comfort in 
conveying him thither, where he died soon after, in the eighty- 
first year of his age. 

Strype, in his Life of Archbishop Whitgift, makes the 
following note of Brown, viz: "This year (1589) there 
went oiF from the Separation and came into the communion 
of the Church a Ringleader, namely, Robert Brown." 

Strype gives the following letter from the Lord Treasurer 
Burleigh, which Brown carried in person to the Archbishop 
of Peterborough. The letter, as will be seen, begs an apponit- 
ment for Brown, as a reward for the recantation of his 
opinions. The letter is dated 20th June, 1589, and runs as 
follows, viz : 

■^'That tho' it might seem somewhat strange, that he should 
write unto his Lordship in favor of the bearer, Robert Brown, 
who had been so notably misliked in the world for his strange 
manner of Writing and Opinions held by him ; yet, seeing 
he had now a good time forsaken the same, and submitted 
himself to the Order and Government established in the 
Church, he had been the rather moved to recommend him to 
his Lordship's favor ; and to pray him, if haply any Conceit 
might be in him, that there should remain any Relicks in him 
of his former erroneous Opinions, that he would confer with 
him ; And finding him dutiful and conformable (as he hoped 
he should) to receive him again into the Ministry ; and to give 
him the best means and help for Ecclesiastical preferment." 

The conference must have been satisfactory, for, as we have 
seen. Brown received his appointment 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 19 

Brown was guilty of gross treachery towards his deluded 
follpwers, whom he abandoned at Middleburg. Stillingfleet 
says : 

" When those who were called Brownists, for the freer 
exercise of their new church way, withdrew into the Low 
Countries, they immediately fell into strange factions and 
divisions among themselves. Robert Brown, accompanied by 
Harrison, a school-master, and about fifty or sixty persons, 
went over to Middleburg, and there they chose Harrison 
pastor, and Brown teacher. They had not been there three 
months, but upon the falling out between Brown and Harri- 
son, Brown forsakes them and returns for England, and 
subscribes, promising to the Archbishop to live obedient to 
his commands. Concerning whom Harrison writes to a friend 
in England in th,ese words : 'Mr. Brown hath cast us off, and 
that with open, manifest and notable treacheries ; and if I 
should declare them you could not believe me.' " 

Indeed, according to Stillingfleet, Brown's final reconciha- 
tion with the Church of England and submission to the 
authority of the bishop was only a piece of hypocrisy. For 
Stillingfleet says : " By the bishop's authority, he said he 
meant only his civil authority ; by declaring the Church of 
England to be the church of God, he understood the church 
of his own setting up ; by frequenting our assemblies according 
to law, he meant the law of God and not the law of the land; 
he declared his child was baptised according to law, but then 
told his followers it was done without his consent." One 
more instance of Brown's discriminating must not be omitted. 
Pagitt tells us that Brown was once reprimanded for beating 
his wife. Brown replied, that he did not beat her as his wife, 
but as a cursed old woman ! 

Barrow succeeded Brown as chief, and the Yankees were 

now called Brownists or Barrowists, indifferently, the two 

words meaning the same thing, and identifying one and the 

same sect or organization. 

Neal says : " Robert Brown was the founder of the sec t 



20 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES j OR, 

known as Brownists ;" and again he says : " These were now 
called Brownists or Barrowists, from one Barrow who was 
now at their head." 

Strype says, in his Life of Whitgift : " This man Barrow 
gave denomination to a sect called Barrowism, and was in 
effect the same as Brownism, so called from one Brown." 

Barrow will not detain us long. His reign was a short one. 
He was an unsuccessful imitator of Brown, and finally brought 
up at Tyburn, Avhcre he was hanged as a common felon, on 
the 31st of March, 1594. Those wishing further information 
upon this particular matter may examine the record of his 
trial, which is still preserved, but too voluminous for insertion 
iiere. After his conviction, Barrow recanted and plead for a 
pardon. Bishop Hall calls him a '' false martyr." This is 
true. Barrow was not put to death on account of his religious 
belief or teachings ; but it is nevertheless true that his execu- 
tion was one of the many stains on the judicial proceedings 
of the times, and only to be palliated by the dread of revo- 
lution. 

Barrow is thus outlined in a few strokes by Doctor Ban- 
croft, then Bishop of London : " Barrow was the man, who, 
when by Hoisting and Gaming he had wasted himself and 
had run so far into many a Man's Debt, that he durst not 
show his head abroad, he bent his "Wits another way of Mis- 
chief: And now becoming a Julianist, devising by all the 
Means he could possibly imagine, to wit, Hypocricy, Railmg, 
Lying, and all Manner of Falsehood, how all the Preferments 
which yet remained for Learning (Benefices, Tythes, Glebe- 
Lands, Cathedral churches, Livings, Colleges, Universities 
and all) might be utterly spoiled and made a Prey for Bank- 
routs, Cormorants and such like Atheists." 

The reader may gather some notion of Barrow's revolu- 
tionary teachings from his " Discovery." 

He says : " When princes depart from the faith and will not 
be reduced by admonition or reproof, they are no longer to 
be held in the faith of the church, but are to receive the cen- 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 21 

sure of Christ, as any other, and to be cut otf as withered 
branches; the church cannot, neither hath in her power, to 
defer the sentence of Excommunication any longer on hope 
of further tryall, because they have had alreadie that tryali 
which God alloweth; it is a Leaden-rule to proceed to the 
sentence of Excommunication when the sin is ripe. Which 
censures if the Prince contemn, he contemneth them against 
his own soul; and is therefore by the power of the church 
disfranchised out of the church and to be delivered over to 
Satan as well as any other offender." 

It is to be remarked here that Barrow denied all authority 
to the Church of England, and vested this power of excom- 
municating princes in the church which he was organizing 
himself. In Elizabeth's time this was treason. 

Barrow called the Puritans hypocrites, because they did 
not approve of the Anabaptist plans of Brown and himself. 

George GiiFard, a learned Puritan divine, '' Minister of 
God's Holy Word at Maiden," answered the charge in a work 
entitled "A Treatise against the Donatists of England, 1590." 
This book alone is sufficient to show that tEere was no union, 
alliance, or sympathy between the Puritans and the Brown- 
ists. But it shows clearly enough that the relation between 
them was hostile, and hostile only. 

In a work entitled "Plea for the Innocents, 1602," by 
Josias Nicols, an uncompromising Puritan, we read : 

" In this time also happened the second and third evil. 
The Brownists took oifence at both sides and made a temer- 
arious and wicked separation, and some two or three men 
being bewitched with some proud honour, by a certain mad 
and frantic spirit, lifted up themselves with high words of 
blasphemy. Howbeit, these also were drawn upon us and 
made a notable matter to aggravate our cause.'' 

The " Ministers' Protestation," subscribed by the Puritan 
divines, says: "We protest before Almighty God that we 
acknowledge the churches of England as they are established 
by the public authority to be true visible churches of God." 
This was exactly what the Brownists denied. 



22 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

The Oxonians, in answer to the '' Ministers' Protestation," 
and in their argument against Puritanism, say: " Hath it 
not made the Brownists confidently to reproach us that our 
church is no church ? " 

To this the Puritans make replication in the " Defence " as 
follows: " Our brethren needed not to have cast the Brown- 
lets in our nose, seeing it is well-known that the ministers 
which desire the reformation have most of all others opposed 
themselves to that faction,^' 

Giffard, already quoted, says: -' With this sect only have 
I now to deal. First, therefore, touching their name, we call 
them Brownists, as being the disciples and scholars of one 
Brown." 

Stillingfleet remarks: "As for those of the Separation," (the 
Brownists,) " says Parker, a noted non-conformist, who have 
confuted them more than we ? or who have written more 
against them ? And in a letter of his he expresses the greatest 
detestation of them. Now it grieved me not a little at this 
timo, aaith he, that Satan should be so impudent as to fling the 
dung of that sect into my face, which, with all my power, I had 
80 vehemently resisted during the whole of my ministry in 
England." 

Samuel Rutherford, professor of divinity at St. Andrews, 
whom Mr. Baillie calls " the most learned and acute Mr. 
Rutherford," says, in his Survey of the Spiritual Anti- 
christ; London, 1648: '*The unjustly called Puritans did 
never own Brown, who set on foot the old doctrines of the 
Anabaptists in England." 

In 1593 a bill was brought into Parliament providing for 
the punishment of the Brownists. Price says: " The law was 
not directed against the Puritans, but against the Brownists. 
The one party was regarded as a conscientious body, whose 
scruples were entitled to respect; the others were condemned 
as reckless adventurers, whose principles were destructive of 
religion and subversive of the Commonwealth." 

Fletcher, who may be regarded as an apologist for the 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 23 

Brownists^ makes this important concession, viz : " It is 
somewhat singular that while a strong Puritan feeling was 
gaining ground in Parliament, and evincing itself by various 
attempts to reform the Church of England according to Puri- 
tan notions, that the Brownists should have so few, or no 
sympathizers in the house ready to defend their cause. The 
very same Parliament of 1593, which sought to check the 
unconstitutional proceedings of the Court of High Com- 
mission, passed an iniquitous statute against the Brownists." 

Finch, in discussing this bill, in order to show clearly that 
it was aimed solely at the Brownists and was approved by 
the Puritans themselves, read papers from the Puritans which 
said: " We allow not of the Brownists, the overthrowers both 
of church and commonwealth; we abhor them and we punish 
them." 

Strype says that the magistrates of Suffolk, in their remon- 
strance to the lords in council in 1683 in behalf of their 
Puritan ministers, declared: "We allow not of Papists, of 
the Family of Love, of Anabaptists or Brownists, no; we 
abhor all these, we punish all these." 

In The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America, pub- 
hshed in London, 1647, reprinted in Force's tracts, the writer, 
after a bitter denanciation of Familists, Libertines, Brown- 
ists and others, makes a foot-note, in which he says: " By 
Brownists, I mean not Independents, but dew-clawd Separa- 
tists: far be it from me to wrong godly Independents. I 
truly acknowledge that I judge myself neither able nor 
worthy to honour some of them as they deserve." 

We have thus seen that Barrow was the successor of Brown. 
We have seen that Brownism and Barrowism were one and 
the same. And we have surely brought forward sufficient 
evidence to prove the fact that the Brownists were held in 
abhorrence by the Puritans. Let us now see in what light 
they "were regarded by the philosophers. 

Bacon says: "As for those which we call Brownists, being, 
when they were at the most, a very small number of very 



24 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

silly and base people, here and there m corners dispersed; 
they are now, thanks be to God! by the good remedies which 
have been used, suppressed and worn out, so as there is no 
news of them." Bacon further corroborates Bancroft in his 
judgment of Barrow. Bacon pronounces Barrow " a vain 
and libertine youth." 

The chivalrie Sir "Walter Raleigh has also given us his 
opinion of these Primitive Yankees. It entirely coincides 
with the opinion of Bacon. In discussing the bill in Parlia- 
ment above referred to, Sir Walter said: " In my conceit the 
Brownists are worthy to be rooted out of the commonwealth." 

It may be remarked, in passing, that Bacon furnishes 
additional evidence of the utter absence of any tie or bond 
of relationship between the Puritans and the Brownists. He 
says the Brownists " were very silly and base people." This 
could not apply to the Puritans. He further speaks of them 
as being suppressed ; for which he very naturally, thanks God ! 
Neither could this apply to the Puritans, who were numer- 
ous, and who were enjoying the blessings of social order at 
home, while the Brownists were being imprisoned and driven 
out of the country for their seditious practices. 

Chief Justice Marshall, following Robertson, Chalmers, and 
Burke, says of the Pilgrims : " They were an obscure sect 
which had acquired the appellation of Brownists." Of their 
residence in Holland, he pays : " There they resided several 
years in safe obscurity. This situation at length became 
irksome to them. * * * They made no converts." They 
emigrated to America, because, " in the extinction of their 
church they dreaded, too, the loss of those high attainments in 
spiritual knowledge which they deemed so favorable to truth." 

Francis Johnson succeeded Barrow as the third chief. With 
Brown's defection, the congregation at Middleburg was bro- 
ken up and dispersed. But Johnson now comes forward and 
leads into Holland a new installment of carpet-baggers. 

Strype, anno 1593, says : " In London one Francis John- 
son was the pastor of the Brownists." 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. ' 25 

Neal, speaking of the Brownists, says : '' Their congrega- 
tion at London being now pretty numerous, formed them- 
selves into a church, with Francis Johnson elected pastor; Mr. 
Greenhood, teacher; Mr. Bowman and Lee, deacons; Mr. 
Studley and Kenaston, elders. This church was organized in 
the house of Mr. Fox, in Mcolas Lane, in the year 1592." 
is'eal again calls Johnson " pastor of the Brownist church." 
fie also says: " Johnson carried the Brownists into Holland- 
* * But the greatest number who left their native 
country for religion were Brownists, of whom Mr. Johnson, 
Ainsworth, Smyth, and Robinson, were the leaders. * * * 
Mr. Johnson erected a church at Amsterdam after the model 
of the Brownists." 

Mosheim says : ^' Among these sects none is more famous 
than that formed about the year 1580 by Robert Brown. This 
sect impatient under the great injuries it had received (per- 
haps through its own fault) in England, removed to Holland 
and settled at Middleburg, Amsterdam, and Leyden." 

Baillie says: " After the death of Ainsworth, the Brown- 
ists at Amsterdam came to a small, inconsiderable handful, 
and so yet they remain. No other at that time in the whole 
world were known of that religion but a small company at 
Leyden, under Master Robinson's ministry. * * * 
Robinson was the last advocate of that party. * * * 
Johnson was a leader of the Brownists, and was for many 
years pastor at Amsterdam." 

Brook, in his Lives of the Puritans, says : " Robinson set 
out on the most rigid principles of Brownism." 

Oldmixon says that, '' the members of Robinson's church 
were Brownists." 

Neal says : " John Robinson removed to Leyden and created 
a congregation on the model of the Brownists." 

They were known as Brownists to the National Dutch 
Church in Holland. After Robinson's death his congregation 
at Leyden was broken up. Some of its members, among 
whom were Robinson's widow and some of his children, 



26 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

conuectecl themselves with the Dutch church. In the 20th 
volume of the New England Genealogical Register we find a 
copy of an entry in the records of the Dutch church at Leyden, 
which runs as follows: "Dominie Lantsman enquires how 
he shall act in respect to certain Englishmen of the Brownist 
congregation who request to bo received by our church." 

These citations prove that the Brownists continued one and 
the same sect or organization. They prove that the third' 
chief was Johnson, and that the fourth and final chief was 
Robinson. We shall see in the sequel not only that Robinson 
was the fourth chief, but that he inherited those principles 
which governed the conduct of the founder and the master, 
Brown. 

Robinson's Cape Cod Pilgrims were also heirs to the polit- 
ical and religious doctrines taught by their founder; and the 
remark may be ventured here, that they also shaped their 
practical life after his example. In this view a recapitulation 
of some of Brown's moral characteristics will not be uninter- 
esting. 

Brown was an educator. He educated first as a school- 
master. Not contented with this, he educated as a lecturer. 
But lecturing was not sufficient to quench his thirst for 
imparting information. He educated as a tramp preacher. 
He organized secret political societies and educated them. 
He flattered the vanity of his followers, he appealed to their 
cupidity, and gave the reiu to license. With what zeal he 
labored in the cause of education appears from his boast, that 
he had been confined in thirty-two ditterent prisons on 
account of it. 

It was one of the principles of the Family of Love, as we 
have already seen, that no one should sutier for his religious 
convictions. This principle Brown adopted. The first time 
he was arrested, he confessed his fault and was discharged on 
promise of amendment. The second time, he swore himself 
out ; and for the remainhig thirty-two arrests there will be no 
difficulty in accounting for his escape, if we suppose that he 
was allowed to testify in his own behalf. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 27 

Brown was a believer in higher law. He was a true dis- 
ciple of Joris and of Henry of Amsterdam. The positive 
laws and institutions of England were to be disregarded 
whenever Brown's conscience testified to the contrary. In 
the face of this testimony to the contrary, the institutions 
and laws of England became leagues with death and cov- 
enants with hell. And Brown taught his disciples to so 
regard them. 

Brown was also a martyr, but he took good care to make 
his martyrdom profitable rather than inconvenient. Or, which 
is nearer the truth, he sought the reputation of suffering for 
a cause in order to attract followers ; when, in fact, instead of 
being persecuted, few men have lived so long and been so 
incorrigible and yet escaped punishment as he did. 

Brown showed himself a true disciple of the Family of 
Love in divorcing himself from his wife. The grounds of 
this divorce are those of both the original and modern free- 
lovers — incompatibility of disposition. With Brown, mar- 
riage was a perfect partnership ; either party could withdraw 
from it at pleasure. 

It was another principle of the Family of Love that they 
could employ the formulas of any creed or confession to give 
expression to their own true inwardness. A noted pulpit 
quack of our own day has adopted this, together with some 
other lusty doctrine from the same source. Brown held this 
principle, and he acted upon it when he found that vaga- 
bondizing in Holland was not successful. He then formu- 
lated his belief in the confession of the Church of England 
and received his appointment. 

Above all was Brown a Christian statesman. He knew 
how to discriminate. How sharply he put it in the matter of 
beating his wife ! Had Brown been a member of Congress, 
with what force of argument he could have pointed out the 
distinction between a fee and a bribe ! With what beauty 
of language would he now reason, were he with us in the 
flesh, on a question involving dividends on the one hand and 
ordinary honesty on the other ! 



28 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

We fear that the descendants of Brown have not honored 
his memory according to his merits. Touching Brown their 
literature has been painfully silent. Their office-holding his- 
torians have agreed that the public interest demands that 
Brown should be kept in the back-ground. There are, con- 
sequently, but few who know that this founder, hero, and mar- 
tyr once existed. There are fewer still who are aware that it 
is to Brown that we are ultimately indebted for those princi- 
ples which underlie our Government as now constituted and 
administered, and for those institutions and practices, social 
and moral, which it is our privilege to enjoy and transmit ! 

We have already referred to the Brownist church which 
Johnson organized in Fox's house in Nicolas Lane, London. 
This congregation Johnson carried into Holland. Neal tells 
us that in 1592-'3 " Johnson erected a church at Amsterdam 
after the model of the Brownists, having the learned Mr. 
Ainsworth for doctor or teacher." 

No sooner had Johnson's Brownists arrived in Holland 
than they " set forth " their "Confession," and went to work to 
proselyte the Dutch. 

Johnson and his congregation had been expelled from Eng- 
land on account of the doctrines which they sought to propa- 
gate. It is proper, therefore, to inquire somewhat particu- 
larly what these doctrines were. 

It is to be remembered that in the seventeenth century, 
and especially in the first half of it, the separation 9f church 
and state, as we now understand it, was not even dreamed 
of. Upon this question there was no difference of opinion 
between Brown and the Queen herself. Both alike maintained 
that the state existed jure divino. So also did the form of the 
church ; and the revealed will of God was paramount authority 
in both cases. The difficulty was, that the two parties inter- 
preted this will in directly opposite meanings. The Queen 
and the Church of England maintained that the government 
of the church by bishops was of divine origin. Brown and 
the Brownists, on the other hand, affirmed that half a dozen 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 29 

« 

or more individuals who should associate themselves together 
and choose their officers constituted the visible church of God 
on earth. There could be no collision between church and 
state, as both existed under the express precept of one Divine 
Lawgiver. There could be but one true church, and this 
ought to be the state church. From the Brownist point of 
view, those princes who opposed their church were enemies 
of God and deserved to be excommunicated, and the govern- 
ment of both church and state taken from them. The ques- 
tion at issue between the Brownists and the government was 
not whether the former should be allowed liberty of conscience 
and the right to worship God in their own way, but v)hcAher 
a sect should be tolerated which was dilfusing principles 
directly subversive of the royal authority itself. 

Brown maintained that the state ought to enforce the true 
religion with temporal pains and penalties. Of c )urse it was 
understood that the one, true, and only faith was that which 
the Brownists professed. 

" We acknowledge," says Barrow, " that a prince ought to 
compel all his subjects to the hearing of God's Word in the 
public exercises of the church." 

Johnson declared such to be his views in his answer to 
Jacob. Johnson says, as quoted by Stillingfleet : '^ That our 
ministers ought not to sufler themselves to be silenced and 
deposed from their public ministry, no not by the lawful 
magistrates." This was a call to open resistance to the laws 
of the land. 

John Robinson said : " That godly magistrates are by com- 
pulsion to repress public and notable idolatry, as also to pro- 
vide that the truth of God, in his ordinances, hg taught and 
published in their dominions, I make no doubt." 

Again Barrow says : " The prince is charged, and in duty 
ought to see the ministers of the church do their duty and 
teach the law of God diligently and sincerely." 

Again Johnson says : " We condemn not reformation com- 
manded and compelled by the magistrates, but do unfeignedly 



30 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE^ YANKEES ; OR, 

desire that God would put it into the heart of her majesty^ 
and all other princes within their dominions, to command and 
compel a reformation according to the word of the Lord, 
Princes may and ought within their dominions to abolish all 
false worship and all false ministries whatsoever; and to estab- 
lish the true worship and ministry established by God and 
his word " — that is, the worship and ministry of the Brown- 
ists. 

In the 39th article of their "Confession," put forth at Amster- 
dam, the Brownists declare that it is the duty of princes and 
magistrates to " suppress and root out l)y their authority all 
false ministries, voluntary religions and counterfeit worship 
of God;" and also to *' enforce all their subjects, whether 
ecclesiastical or civil, to do their duties to God and man." 

" Their great tenet about the Magistracy," says Baillie, " is 
this, that no Prince nor State on earth hath any Legislative 
power; That neither King nor Parliament can make any law 
in anything that concerns either Church or State; That God 
alone is the Lawgiver; That the greatest Magistrate hath no 
other power, but to execute the Laws of God set downe in 
Scripture ; That the Judiciall Law of Moses binds at this day 
all the Nations of the world, as well as ever it did the Jews. 
They tell us, that whatever God in Scripture hath left free, it 
may not be bound by any humane Law, whether Civill or 
Ecclesiastick ; and what God hath bound l)y any Law in Scrip- 
ture, they will not have it loosed by the hand of any man." 

In executing this law of Moses, they demanded that the 
magistrate should put to death every idolater. " And here," 
says Baillie, " is the great danger, that b\' Idolaters they will 
have understood, not only Pagans and Papists, but by farre 
the greatest part of all Protestants, all absolutely who are not 
of their way; for the using of a set Prayer, were it the Lord's 
own Prayer, to them is clear Idolatry." 

It may be worthy of remark that one of the favorite expres- 
sions of the Brownists was, that "the Lord's Prayer was as 
loathsome to God as swine's flesh to a Jew." 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 31 

Baillie continues: '' Thej will have all churches that were 
builded in the time of Poperv made level with the groimd. 

" Against the learning of the times they make large invec- 
tives; the imiversities and all the colleges in them they will 
have razed to the ground; whatever arts and sciences are 
taught in the Christian schools they count them idle and vain; 
Grammar, Khetorick, Logick, Philosophy, are all unlawfull 
arts. 

" The heathen writers which ai^e used in any faculty, such 
as Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and the like, they would have 
them all burnt as the authors of unlawfull arts." 

That such were their doctrines, Baillie proves by abundant 
citations from the works of their own leader.- and writers. 

Robertson says: -Their system of civil government was 
founded on those ideas of the natural equality among men 
to which their ecclesiastical policy had accustomed them." 
He says, further : " Under the influence of this wild notion 
the colonists of Xew Plymouth threw all their property into 
a common stock." 

Baillie calls Robinson a communist, and cites the following 
from his writings to prove it, viz: "Omnia etiam bona cor 
poralia suo modo communia habenda. prout cuique opus 
aequissimum videtur." 

The intermeddling habit which had characterized the 
Brownists in England immediately made itself manifest in 
their new settlement at Amsterdam. They were not con- 
tent to keep their " Confession" to themselves, but seemed 
bent in involving all the continent, if possible, in their quar- 
rel. 

But, first of all, having no one else to wrangle with for 
the immediate present, the members of Johnson's Amsterdam 
church, including himself, fell together by their own ears. 

Johnson, the preacher, married a rich widow who wore 
corked shoes, and got into trouble. It does not exactly appear 
what the true cause of this trouble was. But, at all events, 
Johnson's family seemed to take the marriage as a great out- 



32 THE HISTORY OF THE PklMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

rage. His father and brother now opposed him bitterly, and his 
church was turned into a prize ring, some backing the preacher, 
while others supported his relations. Johnson, the preacher, 
won, and excommunicated his father and brother. George 
Johnson, the brother, then attacked Johnson, the preacher, 
in a pamphlet, which must have been very severe, judging 
from Ainsworth's reply; for he now took up the cudgels 
and denounced George Johnson unsparingly, who, he says, 
f' was cast out of the church for lying, slandering and false 
accusation." 

Pagitt tells us that " Johnson broke fellowship with his 
father and brother and cursed them with all the curses in 
God's Booke. This separation was confirmed by the heavy 
sentence of excommunication, by which he did give his father 
and brother to the Divell." 

Bishop Hall, in his Apology Against the Brownists, 
referring to Johnson's congregation at Amsterdam and his 
cruelty to his father, says: '^Hear rather of jSTovatius, the 
father of a not unlike sect ; of whom Cyprian reports, that 
he would neither bestow bread upon his father alive, nor 
burial on him dead, but suffered him both to starve and stink 
in the street; and, for his wife, lest she should be merciful to 
any, he spurned ner with his heel and slew his own child in 
her body. What need I seek so far ? I grieve to think and 
report that your own Pastor hath paralleled this cruelty." 

Bishop Hall says "further : " But whither will ye run from 
this communion with the Profane ? How well you have 
avoided it in your own separation, let M. White, George 
Johnson, Master Smith be sufficient witnesses, whose plentiful 
reports of your known uncleannesses, smothered mischiefs, 
malicious proceedings, corrupt packings, communicating with 
known oflenders, bolsterings of sins and willing connivances, 
as they are shameful to relate, so might well have stopped 
your mouth from excepting at our confused communion with 
the Profane." 

In the year 1603 was published in London a tract, entitled 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 33 

"Brownism Turned the Inside Outward : Being a Parallel 
Between the Profession and Practice of the Brownists' 
Religion; by Christopher Lawue." 

Lawne says in the preface: " It is not Satan's weakest delu- 
sion, in these our days, to set the fairest glosses upon the foulest 
matters ; and to dress his deadliest hooks with the most delight- 
ful baits. It is my purpose, therefore, gentle reader, to let thee 
understand somewhat concerning this sect of Brownism, which 
miserable' experience — the mistress of fools — hath made 
known unto me ; desiring that my mishap may prevent 
others harm. I have not in the manifesting of the impieties 
of this sect written anything but that which I can of my 
own knowledge, with good conscience, affirm; although I have 
alleged sundry authors for the proof thereof, yet it is not for 
want of knowledge in myself, but rather for thy resolution, 
that in the mouth of so many witnesses, everything might 
be confirmed unto thee." 

Of Johnson, Lawne says : " He is a most frailful and vil- 
lanous pastor. He is a man that loveth vice; he is foolish, 
unrighteous, unholy, intemperate. He is of life reprovable, 
generally evil reported of; one that ruleth his own house 
dishonestly; he is immodest, haughty, proud, cruel and 
unnatural, grudging for maintenance, holding his office in 
respect of lucre." 

Of the church members, Lawne says : " There were no 
believers while I lived among them, but a most haughty, 
proud, disobedient, dissembling and spiteful people." 

In 1605 was published in London another tract, by Thomas 
"White, entitled " A Discovery of Brownism." White says : 
" I have rather endeavored to point at things briefly, than 
by dilating to fill up large volumes; of purpose omitting 
man^ of the vilest things, partly for fear of offending chaste 
ears, partly for sparing them, unless further occasion be min- 
istered by themselves." 

It seems further, from White, that Deacon Bowman had 
received some money which the magistrates had allowed for 



34 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

the poor of the congregation, and had appropriated it to his 
own use. This was upon the evidence of a sister, " Good_ 
wife Colgates," who, Johnson says, was not to be believed ^ 
because " she hath since carried herself so ungodly, that she 
is cast out of the church and so remaineth." 

Pagitt quotes the following from the same writer's Pro- 
fane Schism of the Brownists, viz : 

*' These that pretend such sincerity of Religion doe abound 
above all others with all kinds of debates, malice, adulteries, 
cozenage, uncleannesse, so that W. C. complaineth, that he 
had thought they had been all Saints, but I see they are all 
Devills. 

" I might set down their equivocating and palliating their 
wickednesse; as one Geoftrey Whiteacres,of Master Johnson's 
congregation, being found in bed with one Judith Holder 
another man's wife; for which matter bee affirmed, that hee 
did it not to satisfy his lusts; but to comfort Judith, being 
sickly, and to keep her warme. 

"Againe, when Mr. Studley, a chiefe Prophet of Mr. John- 
son's congregation, was found hidden behind a basket in 
Judith's house, had this holy pretence, that he had hid him- 
self to see the behavior of G. P., who came thither after him; 
hee being an Elder would be a watchful Overseer. 

" Againe, M. M. being in a w — h — , and creeping out of a 
window, the elder, D. S., excused him, alledging in his defence 
the example of St. Paul, Acts, 9:26; who was, by the disci- 
ples, let downe over the wall in a basket. 

" Mr. Johnson sought to clear the uncleannesse of a man 
found in bed with another man's wife. * * # 

"Also Daniel Studley went about to palhate his filthiness 
with his wive's daughter, ungodly alledging the Holy Scrip- 
tures; like Solomon, who would know all secrets. 

" I desire God to keep all people from such a Congregation^ 
v^here Adulteries, Cozenages and Thefts are in such abundance 
as in the English Congregation at Amsterdam; that I speak 
not of Brokerages of W s and other iilthinesse, too bad." 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 35 

White concludes : " This is true ; there is no sect in 
Amsterdam (though many) in such contempt for filthy life 
as the English are, viz., the Brownists." 

White's veracity has been called in question by no one 
except Johnson, who calls him a liar generally. He was a 
clergyman in esteem, in days when slander and falsehood 
were infamous. He had a living next to Pagitt, and Pagitt 
vouches him. Bishop Hall also quotes him frequently. 

George Johnson, brother of the " frailful and villanous 
pastor," says of elder Studley : " Mark how the Lord hath 
judged him with unnaturalness to his own children; suffering 
them to lie at other men's feet an d*hang on other men's hands, 
while he, his wife and her daughter fared daintily and went 
prankingly in apparel, even in this place of banishment." 

Pagitt quotes White further, as follows: "Studley had a good 
veine for making rhymes, especially filthy and obscene ones, 
which he taught unto little children, his scholars, and to 
Mistress May, who used in her house to sing such songs, being 
more fit for a common bawd than for a person professing the 
pure separation." 

Pagitt says : " You may read in the Book called The Profane 
Schism of the Brownists, how cruelly also they used their 
servants for not doing their Tasks ; as some they hang up by 
the hands and whip them stark-naked, being women grown; 
yea, they spare not their own wives but correct them." 

Pagitt tells us that Mr. White, the author of these statements, 
was sued in the Dutch court at Amsterdam for slander, by 
Francis Johnson, Henry Ainsworth, Francis Blackwell, Dan- 
iel Studley, Christopher Bowman, Jane Nicolas, Judith 
Holder, William Barebones, and Thomas Bishop. 

" But," says Pagitt, " after Master White had brought in 
witnesses before the Burgomasters, who did testify and upon 
their oaths and depositions confirm what Mr. White had 
written, he was discharged and had charges given him by the 
Magistrates." In evidence of this, Pagitt cites the records 
of the court at Amsterdam, ^5th of February, 1606. 



36 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

It is not surprising that Dutch poetasters should amuse 
themselves with doggerel verses at the expense of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, as they did; nor that Ben. Jonson should exercise 
his wit upon them in the " Staple of News " and in the 
"Alchemist." It was not impossibly tnese recollections 
which gave rise to the ballads which were afterwards sung. 
The following lines may serve as a specimen: 
"The surplice shall not fright us, 

Nay, uor superstitious bliudness, 
Nor scandals rise— when we disguise, 
And our sisters kiss in kindness.''' 
When the Brownists set forth their "Confession," Francis 
Junius was divinity reader at the university at Leyden. And 
to Junius they dispatched a messenger, with a copy of their 
"Confession," to have his opinion upon it. Their purpose was 
to draw him out, to inveigle him, if possible, into a contro- 
versy and open a favorite field for the expansion of their dor- 
mant energies in polemical theology. But Junius saw the 
trap, and it speaks much for the kindness of heart of this 
gentle Hollander, that he avoided it in his response with as 
much courtesy to them as dignity to himself. 

He begins by telling them that they were"not accused of 
anything — meaning in Holland; why then should they 
undertake to justify themselves ? He tells them that it is 
sufficient if they are satisfied with their own "Confession ;" that 
their accusations against the Church of England are not 
directed to the proper quarter; and that if they have found 
a place of rest they would act wisely not to stir. Junius, 
who had been attending to other matters than the attairs of 
the Pilgrims, writes: " I ought not to judge with myself of 
matters unknown, at least not so evident; neither yet with 
such forward boldness to pronounce among you, or others, 
the matter not being sufiiciently manifest to myself." 

One would suppose that this letter should have terminated 
the correspondence. But not so. In about a month after- 
wards another letter, bearing the signatures of Johnson and 
others of his congregation, was iyflicted upon Junius. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 37 

Ignoring the fact that he had dechned to give any opinion, 
much less to enter into any disputation with them, tliey 
make an argumentative replication. This letter opens the 
flood-gates. Whether Junius will or no he must engage in 
controversy. They are determined not to let him escape. 
Their document bristles with polemics. It overwhelms him 
with queries. It pushes him ad hominem, ad rem and ad 
absurdum. And this through long folios ! Unfortunate 
Junius ! 

Junius answers. His letter is a fitting rebuke to their 
imperHnence. He writes: ''Give us leave, brethren, I pray 
you, to use our own judgment. We thought it fitter to give 
you counsel than to make an answer to your demands, and 
that this we might do unto you in brotherly duty. If we 
might not, yet will we be more indifferent toward you. I 
wrote as touching counsel because I thought there was need 
of it. I wrote not of the question, because I thought the 
time was not for it. Otherwise I had not thought of vou or 
your matters; no, not so much as in my dream, so greatly do 
I shun to be a meddler in other merits matters.''^ 

Junius expresses himself as entirely satisfied with regard 
to their dissent from the ministers of the church at Amster- 
dam. It was their affair, not his. He charges them with 
dissembling, and proceeds to give them some more sharp 
reproof. He says : " I know nothing of you ; neither should 
yet have known anything, if you had held your peace; so 
strongly are my ears stopped against rumours. Keep your 
confidence to yourselves, and leave us to our modesty, who 
have resolved not to speak of other men's matters, unless we 
know them thoroughly. You think that other good men 
will say otherwise; but I think better of them who in my 
persuasion are furnished with knowledge, skill and wisdom 
from heaven, that they would sooner subscribe to our mod- 
esty than to your judicial confidence. Be it far from you to 
take that course with good men which God, reason, and the 
times have taught us to be dangerous. Rash and heady judg- 



38 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

ments are not to be required, not to be endured, not to be 
heard." 

In his first letter Junius had politely declined giving them 
any opinion. In the second, as we have seen, he states that 
he has not the honor of their acquaintance and intimates 
pretty plainly that he has no desire to make it. Then he 
peremptorily refuses to have anything to do with them or 
their affairs. 

But even this avails not to secure his repose. They are 
untiring; they write a third letter, stating that he ''had 
yielded the cause," and informing him that they " had caused 
his letters to be translated into English and set into print ! " 
They observed further that ^' the prelates and priests of our 
country do so interpret your letters as if they been written 
against the truth of the Gospel of Christ, which we profess 
and for defence of the Antichristian apostacy and tyranny 
wherein they persist." 

Unfortunate Junius ! You are, in spite of yourself, a con- 
troversialist, upholding both Antichrist and tyranny I Your 
letters, without your knowledge or consent, have been pub- 
lished to the world, and this construction placed upon them 
by the disturbers of your peace ! 

The Pilgrim writers have reiterated it over and over again 
that they lived in peace and harmony with the Dutch churches. 
Baillie says : " We must not be deceived with their pleasant 
words when they make fair professions of their hearty agree- 
ment in so many things with the other reformed churches. 
These flatteries contradict both their doctrine and their 
practice. * * * They cry out upon the crimes of the 
church of Holland." And Bishop Hall corroborates 
Baillie. 

That they had attempted to get into a controversy with 
the Dutch church at Amsterdam, is evident from this, their 
third letter to Junius. They say : "Concerning the differences 
which are between us and the Dutch church of this city, it 
needeth not that we write unto you of the particulars." 



I 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 39 

The letter closes with this admonition to Junius : *' Sir, 
take you heed in godliness, that in this cause you do not in 
any respect withhold the duty which you owe unto them," 
(their own doctrines,) "or defend which you owe unto the 
truth." 

To this communication Junius replied as follows, viz : 

" A huge bundle of letters, beloved brethren, I received 
from you yesterday in the evening. I gave you counsel to 
rest from questions ; you commanded me to enter into ques- 
tions. I continue still in my purpose ; for I esteem more of 
peace in the church than of the seeds of strife ; they that are 
fed with these seeds shall reap the fruit. Where you conclude 
and pronounce that I do therefore assent to you, it is a false 
concJusion. As touching the matter I have enjoined myself 
silence ; and though I be an hundred times called upon by 
letters, I will continue still in the argument of counsel. If it 
like you not, let it alone. You may move many things in 
your letters ; I will rest from those things." 

Junius now charges them with bad faith in the publication 
of his letters. He says : " That niy letters unto you were 
translated into English, I have now first known it by you. 
I knew not fhat it was done. But I pity you ; I speak it 
unfeignedly, who, for my letters, give forth in public your own 
conclusions. With good men, good dealing should be used." 

The Pilgrims got in the last word. They replied and Junius 
answered them no more. In this, their reply, they tell Junius 
that he has enjoined silence upon himself because he is unable 
to answer them. They charge him with being a moral cow- 
ard, and finally finish by giving him a thorough-going cursing 
in Old Testament phraseology, thus : " Cursed be he that 
doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully ; and cursed be he that 
keepeth back his sword from blood." 

The Church of England they cursed in this wise : " 
daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed ! Happy shall 
he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us ! Happy 



40 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

shall he be that taketh and dashest thy little ones against the 
stones." 

Thus closed the Junius correspondence. It is interesting 
in niore than one point ot view; but it is chiefly of interest 
to us in exhibiting the beginning of a process of evolution 
which has not yet differentiated the totality of its potences. 

Another evidence of the intermeddling of the Pilgrims 
with the Dutch churches is derived from the controversy 
between the Puritan, Hugh Broughton, and Ainsworth, one 
of the officers, as we have seen, in Johnson's church. 

Among other things, Broughton said: "■ When you excom- 
municated N. N. for marrying a wife of Amsterdam, did you 
not censure all maidens here to be infidels, saving ihem of 
your sort ? " 

Ainsworth replies: " For our excommunication I answer: 
First, that myself alone never excommunicated any, but 
together with the church whereof I am, in the name and by 
the power of Christ, this have we done to divers, and God 
hath confirmed it in Heaven. Secondly, if you will take it 
upon you to defend the corruptions of this Dutch church in 
baptizing the children of them that are in no church, and 
their other transgressions in their constitution, government 
and worship, &c., tohereof we have admoivished their overseers, 
^c, we are willing to hear what you have to say." 

John Smyth arrived at Amsterdam with some followers 
in 1606. He and Robinson were both from Lincolnshire, and 
Bishop Hall says Smyth was Robinson's " Oracle and Gen- 
eral." 

Smyth was the man who baptized himself to be sure it was 
done right. Ilanbary says he " was tainted with the errors 
of the sect known as the Family of Love." 

John Robinson arrived at Amsterdam in 1608, . He sig- 
nalized his advent by the fiercest attack upon the Church of 
England that had yet been made. This publication was cir- 
culated in England. Its bitter vituperations and incendiary 
appeals caused Bishop Hall to write in reply to Robinson that 






THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 41 

it was well for him " that there was a great ditch between 
himself and England." 

This revolutionary propaganda of the Brownists came very 
near bringing Holland into trouble ; for the English govern- 
mei t instructed its ambassador " to deal with the States for 
ti e s.ay of such books in Holland." 

At the risk of wearying the reader, we make some extracts 
frpm Kobinson's writings against the Church of England. 

He says: "■ "We account you Babylon and fly from you. * 
* * It is the apostacy of Antichrist to have communion 
with the world in the Holy things of God * * * The 
blasting hierarchy suffers no good thing to grow and prosper, 
but withers all, both bud and branch." 

Robinson wanted the churches and cathedrals laid in ruins. 
Of these he said: '' One is in Lambeth, another in Fulham,, 
and wheresoever a pontifical prelate is, or his chancellor, 
commissary, or other subordinate, there is a tower of Babel 
unruinated." He says that in the Church of England " sins 
and absolutions from them are as venal and as salable as at 
Rome. * * * Though you cry never so loud ' We have 
no king but Csesar,' yet is there another king, one Jesus." 
Which means that in the name of '' Jesus " the Brownists 
would overthrow '' Csesar." 

A true iconoclast was Robinson. He says : " Your temples, 
especially your Cathedrals and Mother Churches, stand, still 
in their proud majesty, possessed by Arch-bishops and Lord 
Bishops, like the Flamens and Arch-flamens amongst the 
Gentiles from whom they were derived, and furnished with 
all manner of pompous and superstitious monuments, as 
carved and painted images, massing copes and surplices, 
chanting and organ music, and many other glorious orna- 
ments of the Romish Harlot.*' 

Robinson would have done unto these English priests and 
monuments, which he called Roman idols, '' as was done to 
the Egyptian idols, Mithra and Serapis, whose priests were 
expelled, their ministry and monuments exposed to utter 



42 THE HISTOKY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

Bcorn and desolation ; their temples demolished and razed to 
the very foundations." 

Pagitt might well say, that '' for deceitful slanders the 
Browuists excell all other sects. Michael, the Archangel, 
durst not give the Devill such cursed speaking nor raile upon 
him as they doe upon us." 

Smyth had not been idle since his arrival in Amsterdam. 
He soon succeeded in embroiling himself with Johnson. He 
pretended to believe tiiat it was sinful to read translations 
from the Scriptures in the public exercises of worship. 
Translations were the work of men, and, in his opinion, as 
idolatrous as printed prayers. He said that the teachers 
should bring the original Hebrew and Greek texts and trans- 
late them orally to the congregation. 

Robinson found this quarrel flaming when he arrived. 
Whatever may have been his views on this particular ques- 
tion, he sided with his '"' oracle and general " against Johnson. 

It was soon discovered that Amsterdam was not spacious 
enough to contain so many aspiring leaders, and Smyth and 
Robinson left it together to seek new fields in Leyden, taking 
with them their own followers and as many of Johnson's 
congregation as they had been able to recruit, about three 
hundred in all. It is to be remarked here that Ainsworth, 
Johnson's chief officer, charged Smyth with having been of 
"three several religions." But this could easily be justified 
on the principles of the Family of Love, with which Sm}iii 
was " tainted." 

After Smyth and Robinson's departure, Johnson and his 
chief officer, Ainsworth, quarrelled. Ainsworth doubtless 
thought that he was as good a man as Johnson, and as much 
entitled to the pay and perquisites of pastor. Then he must 
have envied Johnson his rich widow, with her corked shoes ^ 
while he himself was only a porter in a book house, and 
had to strain his back at bales and boxes, and run his feet off 
delivering packages. And Roger Williams says: "He lived on 
nine pence and boiled roots a week." His Hfe must have been 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 43 

monotonous. So he concluded that he would spring a new 
issue and see what he could make off that. 

Johnson maintained with the JBrownists generally that 
the power of excommunicating was lodged in the eldership 
exclusively. Ainsworth took a more popular ground, and 
maintained against Johnson that this power was vested in 
the people of the church; and he called Johnson's elders 
** idols," "hierarchs," and such like names. Two parties 
quickly formed themselves, the Johnsonians and the Ains- 
worthians. Kobinson egged on the quarrel. The more dis- 
sension in Johnson's church, the more, it was hoped, would 
grace abound in the addition of members of Johnson's flock 
to Robinson's sheep-fold. Just here, John Paget, an out- 
sider, a Puritan, residing in Holland, let fly a shaft, entitled 
" An Arrow against the Brownists." 

Paget charged against Ainsworth that he had changed his 
coat and his religion five several times; and that when he had 
been charged with it before, Johnson, who was then his friend, 
had not been able to deny it. Paget says, further, that Ains- 
worth had help in this quarrel from Robinson's church. 

The quarrel waxed warm. Other matters became involved 
in it. Robinson abandoned the less ambitious role of merely 
fomenting the strife, and became an open participant. He- 
anathematized Johnson and his saints as " bastardly runa- 
gates, miserable guides, engrossers of the keys, arrogant Zid- 
kias, laying the corner-stone of Babylon, Lucians, scoffing 
Atheists," &c. 

Johnson seized his Billingsgate in defence, and hurls at 
Smyth and Robinson, " Korites, rebeUious pleaders of con- 
fusion." 

Nor was that vigorous elder, Studley, silent. He, too, 
grasped his goose quill and alliterated against Fuller, one of 
Robinson's deacons, and against the Robinsonians generally, 
as follows, viz: "Ignorant ideots, nobby Nabalites, dogged 
Doegs, faire-faced Pharisees, shameless Shimeites, malicious 
Machiavellians." 



44 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR^ 

About the way of it was this: Johnson cursed Ainsworth, 
and Ainsworth cursed Johnson back. Johnson and Ains- 
worth both cursed Smyth. Robinson proclaimed Johnson an 
apostate; whereupon Johnson cursed Robinson for siding 
against him. As White naively remarks, " this was a cursing 
and a cursed sect." 

Long and acrimonious was the contention in this triangu- 
lar fight among the Ainsworthians, the Johnsonians and the 
Robinsonians. Bitter were their criminations and recrimina- 
tions; and consigned to everlasting and merited oblivion are 
the pamphlets which passed between them. The congrega- 
tions of the saints in Holland were in a bad way. Those in 
Amsterdam were having lawsuits among themselves. They 
had a lawsuit for their meeting-house. The magistrates pro- 
posed arbitration, but the proposition was rejected. The 
patience of the good Dutch was wearing out, and we are 
quite ready to beheve all that is said by Robert Baillie and 
others about the Dutch heartily wishing to be rid of such 
troublesome guests. 

The Brovvnidts had not succeeded in England. They were 
not succeeding in Holland. It was evident that something 
must be done in aid of the business interest. 

What were they to do ? 

They determined to emigrate. 

The causes which led to this resolution were quite natural 
ones. Their children were marrying ofi' among the Dutch, 
and were seeking their fortunes in the four quarters of the 
globe, wherever Dutch ships sailed. They were making no 
converts. Their sect was too obscure to attract notice, and 
it was rapidly losing its identity. As for religious liberty, 
they had that in its amplest extent where they were. It was 
not to enjoy this blessing that they determhied upon going. 
Perhaps there is no other false statement which has been so 
persistently repeated as the assertion that the Pilgrims fled to 
America to escape persecution. The fact is, these people 
wore extremely poor in this world's goods, however rich they 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 45 

may have been in spiritual gifts; and it was that common 
instinct of human nature to seek a better condition which led 
them, as it has led millions, to seek new fortunes in other climes. 

The eyes of Europe were at this time turned towards the 
New World. Colonists from Spain, Fance and England were 
already there, and fabulous were tJaeHales which were told 
of the treasures of the virgin wilds. The prospect was an 
alluring one to the Brownists and they contemplated it 
with delight. 

They discussed the matter over and over among themselves 
as to where they should go. At first they seemed to fix 
upon Guinea, the El Dorado of Sir Walter Raleigh. But 
this project was soon abandoned on account of the many 
fatal diseases incident to the climate. 

In the month of September, 1609, Hendrick Hudson, in 
the employ of the Dutch East India Company, and sailing 
under a Dutch commission, anchored his vessel, the " Half 
Moon," in what is now New York harbor. He reported 
back of the country along the Hudson that "it is as fair a 
land as can be trodden by the foot of man," and again, 
"on all lands on which I have ever set my foot, this is the 
best for tillage." The hungry Brownists had heard these 
descriptions and their mouths must have watered. 

The Dutch merchants, as private individuals, continued to 
trade with the Indians of the Hudson River country from the 
time of its first discovery by Hudson, until October, 1614. 
At this date, the States General of the Netherlands granted 
a charter to a united company of merchants to the region 
known as "New Netherlands," extending from the region 
about the mouth of the Hudson as far northward as Albany. 
In 1616, travelers returning from there to Holland described 
these lands as "a vast forest abounding in bucks and does, in 
turkeys and partridges, the climate temperate like that of 
Holland, the trees mantled by the vine." 

They decided the question by fixing upon the mouth of the 
Hudson for their settlement and future home. 



46 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR^ 

They conferred with the merchants of Amsterdam about 
the matter, and these, being favorably disposed toward the 
intended enterprise, laid an application for them before the 
Prince of Orange for his approval. They requested the 
authority to colonize "the aforementioned preacher (Robin- 
son) and four hundred families in New Netherlands." The 
Prince gave no answer, but referred the matter to the States 
General, who refused the request. This history, which is 
not alluded to by au;^ of the early New England chroniclers, 
is given by Brodhead in his History of New York, on the 
authority of official Holland documents. 

While this application was yet pending in Holland, the 
Brownists sent two of their number, Robert Cushman and 
John Carver, to England to treat with the Council for Vir- 
ginia, in order to secure a settlement under their protection. 
This council had been instituted under the auspices of the 
Queeu and the Church of England. The two Brownist com- 
missioners carried with them seven articles, which contained 
a recantation of their hitherto professed faith; and these 
articles were so construed by the council, for Sir Edwin Sandys 
writes to Robinson and Brewster, saying : " And seven articles 
subscribed with your name have given the gentlemen of the 
Council of Virginia that satisfaction, which has carried them 
on to a resolution to forward your desire in the best sort that 
may be for yonr own and the public good." 

The following are the articles to which reference is here 
made, viz : 

" Seven Artikles which ye church of Leyden sent to ye 
counsell of England to be considered of in respeckt of their 
judgment occationed about their going to Virginia Anno 
1618: 

"1. To ye confession of fayth published in ye name of ye 
Church of England and to every artikell thereof, wee do 
with ye reform Churches where we hve and also els wheer 
assent wholly. 

" 2. As wee do acknowlidg ye doctrine of fayth theer 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND, 47 

tawght SO c'o wee ye fruites and efteckts of ye same doctryne 
to ye begetting of saving fayth in thousands as in ye land 
( conformistes and reformistes) as ye ar called with whome 
also as with our brethren wee do desyer to keepe sperituall 
communion in peace and will pracktis in our parts all law- 
full thinges. 

" 3, The King's Majesty wee acknowlidg for Supreame Gov- 
ernor in his dominion in all causes and over all persons, and 
yt none may decklyne or appeale from his authority or judg- 
ment in any cause whatsoever, but yt in all thinges obedi- 
ence is dewe unto him, either active, if ye thing commanded 
bee not against God's word, or passive if itt bee, except par- 
don can be obtayned. 

" 4. Wee judge itt lawfuU for his Majesty to appoynt bish- 
ops, civill overseers, or officers in authoryty onder him, in ye 
severall provinces, dioses, congregations or parrishes to over- 
see ye churches and governe them civilly according to ye lawes 
of ye Land, untto whom ye ar in all thinges to geve an 
account and by them bee ordered according to Godlyness. 

" 5. The authoryty of ye present bishops in ye Land wee do 
acknowlidg so far forth as ye same is indeed derived from his 
Majesty untto them and as ye proseed in his name, whom wee 
will also therein honor in all thinges and him in them. 

" 6. Wee believe yt no sinod, classes, convocation or Assem- 
bly of Ecclesiasticall officers hath any power or authority at 
all but as ye same by ye Magistrate given unto them. 

" 7. Lastly wee desyer to geve unto all Superiors dew honor 
to preserve ye unity of ye speritt with all yt feare God, to 
have peace with all men what in us lyeth and wherein wee 
err to be instructed by any. 

"Subscribed by— JOHN ROBINSON 

AND 

WILLYAM BKUSTER." 
A mere inspection of these articles is sufficient proof that 
the Brownists surrendered all the doctrines which they had 
hitherto maintained. 



48 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES ; OR, 

It is well worthy of remark that Sir Edwin Sandys was 
the son of an Archbishop of York; that he had been a 
pupil of the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity^ and that he 
had remonstrated with the Lord Treasurer for his leniency 
even to the Puritans. 

It would be absurd to suppose that this gentleman would 
have expressed so high a degree of satisfaction, if these arti- 
cles had not conceded everything that the most rigorous church- 
man could demand. These articles afford evidence that the 
Pilgrim Fathers might have remained peaceably in England 
had they desired, if they really entertained the opinions set 
forth therein. They flatly contradict the oft-repeated asser- 
tion that these people would not have been permitted to return 
and live in England, but were compelled to seek an asylum 
in America to escape persecution. 

These " Seven Articles '' have not yet received at the hands 
of the historian the attention which they merit. You will 
not find in them the savage invective which had hitherto 
marked the writings of the Brownists. You will not find 
Robinson's old curses on the Church of England. There is 
here no talk about Babylon or the daughter of Babylon ; no 
cathedral palaces to be ruinated; no priests to be expelled; 
no heathen temples to be razed to their foundations. The 
polemic lion, Robinson, no longer roared. He had become a 
lamb, and spoke of love and loyalty to church and state. 

The two agents reported back that "^ they found God going 
along with them." But it seems that God did not go along 
with them very far; for, upon further consideration, the coun- 
cil refused to allow them a settlement in Virginia. Their 
career in England and Holland had been too recent and was 
too well known. The council may well have doubted of the 
sincerity and reliability of their professions. 

But although defeated in their purpose of securing a set- 
tlement in Virginia, the Brownists had by no means aban- 
doned their plan of removing to America. 

But where ? And how ? 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 49 

They counselled again among themselves and arrived de- 
liberately at the conclusion that they would rob the Dutch of 
those same lands on the Hudson, which the Dutch had already 
refused to permit them to occupy. 

Holland possessed every element of a lawful, just and 
equitable title to the Hudson, and had also purchased from 
the Indians, if such a transaction could give any additional 
validity. But England might, if so disposed, put up a claim 
to it in virtue of earlier discoveries elsewhere on the Atlantic 
coast. And when did England ever fail to interpose such a 
claim when she had the power to enforce it ? Of all this 
the Brownists were well aware. 

They accordingly entered into a joint stock enterprise with 
some London speculators to carry their purpose into effect. 
These London men could secure the protection of the Eng- 
lish flag, and the Brownists would own the lands, enjoy the 
Indian trade, paying certain fixed sums of profit or dividends 
to the London adventurers. 

They sailed like royal buccaneers, without any charter, 
patent, title, right or authority whatever. 

There is a painting in the rotunda of the Capitol at 
"Washington representing the embarkation of the Brownists 
at Deft-haven for America. It is hardly necessary to remark 
that this is entirely a fanc}- sketch. No portraits of any of 
the Brownists in Holland have ever been taken — or at least 
none have come down to us — except one of Governor Win- 
slow. The painting in the rotunda is quite flattering indeed. 
The cobblers, weavers, porters and tinkers, the peasant louts, 
the Studleys, the Barebones and the Holders, with their 
thick ears, knob noses, coarse features and feet without an 
arch, would not recognize themselves under the fine lines and 
graceful curves with which the artist has seen fit to present 
them. An exception must be made of Miles Standish. He was 
descended of an ancient and noble Catholic family. He 
sought his fortune abroad in the Dutch wars under Maurice. 
It is agreed on all hands that he was not a Brownist. The 



50 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

emigration to America fell in with his love of adventure, 
and he accompanied the Pilgrims, with whom he had become 
acquainted in Holland, in his capacity as a soldier. Hubbard 
says of him, " He had been bred a soldier in the Low Coun- 
tries, and never entered into the school of Christ or of John 
the Baptist." 

This first business enterprise of these primitive sharpers 
failed. The Dutch got wind of their treachery, and made an 
arrangement with the captain of the jMayflower, the vessel 
which was to carry them over, not to land them at Manhat- 
tan, but to carry them as far to the northward as possible. 
The captain was sailing to the north, according to his agree- 
ment with the Dutch, when the vessel was driven by stress 
of weather on Cape Cod, and the Pilgrims went on shore at 
Plymouth Kock, quite contrary to their original intentions. 

Cotton Mather, speaking of the landing at Cape Cod? 
(italics his own,) exclaims: "But why at this cape ? Here 
was not the port which they had intended; this was not the 
land for which the}' had provided. Their design was to have 
sat down somewhere about Hudson's river; but some of their 
neighbors in Holland, having a mind themselves to settle a 
plantation there, sinfully and secretly contracted with the 
master of the ship employed for the transportation of these 
our exiles (!) a more northerly course to i:>ut a trick upon 
them. 'Twas in pursuance of this plot that not only the goods 
but the lives of all on board were now hazarded by the ship's 
falling among the shoals of Cape Cod." 

iSTathaniel Morton, in his Memorial, says: " They set sail 
from Southampton 5th August, 1620. But, alas ! they had 
not sailed far before Mr. Reynolds, the master of the lesser 
ship, complained that he found his vessel so leaky as he durst 
not put further to sea. On which they were forced to put in 
at Dartmouth; Mr. Jones, the master of the biggest ship, 
likewise putting in there with him. The said ships put to 
sea a second time ; but they had not sailed above a hundred 
leagues, ere the said Reynolds again complained of his ship 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 51 

being SO leaky that he feared she should founder; and then 
both ships bore up again and went in at Plymouth. But the 
true reason of the retarding and delaying of matters was by 
the deceit of the master and his com.pam/ ( crew.) 

" These things thus falling out, it was resolved by the 
whole to dismiss the lesser ship and part of the company 
with her; the one ship going back for London, and the other, 
namely: the Mayflower, proceeding on the intended voyage. 

" Now all being compact together in one ship, they put to 
sea again with a prosperous wind. After many boisterous 
storms in which they could bear no sail, but were forced to 

m 

lie at Hull maiiy days together, after long beatings at sea 
they fell in with the land called Cape Cod, not a little joy- 
ful. They tacked about to stand southward, to find some jjlace 
about Hudson'' s river according to their first intentions, for their 
habitations. But they had not sailed that course above half 
a day, bat they conceived themselves in great dano-er, and 
the wind shrinking upon them withal, they resolved to bear 
up again for the cape aforesaid. The next day, by God's 
providence, they got into the capo harbor." 

The discovery of the original manuscript history of Gov- 
ernor Bradford, at Fulham, puts an end to all doubt as to the 
intention of the Pilgrims to "sit down" on the Hudson. 
Bradford states it as a fact. And Morton states " on late 
and certain information," that the captain of the Mayflower 
was bribed by the Dutch for the purpose already mentioned. 
In this Morton is followed by Prince, Neal, Hubbard and 
Hutchinson. 

There are two alleged facts which the historians of the 
Pilgrims have asserted so persistently, that by reason of con- 
stant repetition they are generally accepted as true. One of 
these assertions is that the Pilgrims, and especially Robinson, 
were held in high esteem by the Dutch during their residence 
in Holland. The other assertion is that they were charac- 
terized while there by a spirit of Christian liberty and tolera- 
tion. 



52 THE HI?;T0RY of the primitive YANKEES: OR, 

Both these assertions are false and have been proven to be 
false by the accomplished scholar, Mr, George Sumner. 

The only original source of information concerning the 
history of the Pilgrims to be found among their own writers 
is Governor Bradford's history. 

Governor Bradford wrote a history, extending from 1602 
to 1646, This manuscript was used by Morton in compiling 
his Memorial, first published in 1669. Xathaniel Morton, 
author of the Memorial, was the son of Georsce Morton 
who married in England a sister of Governor Bradford, and 
came to Plj-niouth in 1623, Governor Price came from -7^ 
England in 1621, and it is his son that is the author of the 
Annals of Xew England, Bradford's manuscript history was 
the only authority for matters in Holland and in the begin- 
ning of the colony. Morton used it, Prince used it, Hutch- 
inson used it last in 1767, The manuscript was lost dur- 
ing the Revolutionary war and was discovered at Fulham, 
England, so late as 1855, In that year Bradford's history 
was published for the lirst time, and in the papers of the 
Massachusetts Historical Societ}'. Bradford himself arrived 
in Amsterdam with Robinson in 1608, And he was a pas- 
senger on the Mayflower, 

Morton, Prince and Hutchinson are only authority in so * 
far as they have copied accurately from Bradford. And 
they have not copied accuratel3\ Mr, Sumner says of Mor- 
ton that ''he was not the historian but the advocate." "Re- 
membering this," says Sumner, "one may see a reason why 
he has slightly colored some passages from Governor Brad- 
ford's journal, and why Cotton Mather has drawn in many 
cases from authorities which Morton must have known, but 
which he does not appear to have regarded, and has in other 
cases made statements, for which it would seem to require 
more than an ordinary degree of research to find any author- 
ity whatever." This " coloring" amounts to downright for- 
gery in some instances, but Mr. Sumner Wiis too polite to call 
ti by that name. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 53 

Bradford began his journal in 1630, five years after the 
death of Robinson, and ten years after the emigration to 
America. 

The first false statement that we desire to call attention to 
is from Prince. Prince says in his Xew England Annals, 
published in 1736, while speaking of the alleged attentions 
that were paid to the Pilgrims in Leyden by the magistrates 
and people, that '' They granted the Pilgrims a chm^ch to 
worship in." This statement rests entirely upon the authority 
of Prince, and is, as we shall see, without foundation. Prince 
also says that liobinson lies buried " in the chancel of one of 
the churches," and that " he was had in such esteem both by 
the city and the University, for his learning, piety, modera- 
tion and excellent accomplishments, that the magistrates, 
ministers, scholars, and most of the gentry mourned his 
death as a public loss, and followed him to the grave." Ban- 
croft, in his garrulous way, calls Prince "the careful Thomas 
Prince, who merits the gratitude of the inquirer for his 
judgment and research as an annalist." This statement of 
Prince relative to the attentions to the Pilgrims and to 
Robinson is a pure fabrication. There is no mention of it in 
Bradford's journal. There are letters published in the 
Massachusetts Historical Society from members of Robin- 
son's church, at Leyden, who were with him at his death. 
Xone of these make any mention of it. 

Mr. Sumner says that he examined the Dagboek of Leyden 
for 1608, 1609 and 1620, and that there was iio reference 
whatever to any such grant of a church, though it was among 
the functions of the magistrate at that time to control all the 
church buildincrs and ecclesiastical funds. Mr. Sumner also 
carefully examined two voluminous histories of Leyden, the 
one published in 1641 and the other 1762, "in which the 
the history of each church is given separately, down to the 
smallest chapel attached to the different almshouses.'' These 
notices are written " with great apparent accuracy and cer- 
tainly with great minuteness." He says that many pages 



54 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

are often devoted to the most hisigniiicant of these chapels 
"every change in its difierent occupants mentioned, the acts 
of the magistrates in relation to it recorded, and in some 
cases the putting of new planks to the floor, or fresh white- 
wash on the walls, most faithfully recorded." Yet he found 
no allusion whatever to Mr. Robinson's church. Mr. Sumner 
is convinced that he had no church building, but that the 
congregation met in a hired hall or in Robinson's house. 

By a singular coincidence the Scotch churches were estab- 
lished in Holland at the same time that the Brownists estab- 
lished themselves there. In a treaty between the kingdom 
of Scotland and the Netherlands, provision w^as made granting 
the Scotch the privilege of engaging in trade in the Low 
Countries. A large number of them came over and they 
estabhshed churches among themselves supplied with their 
own pastors. These churches were in full communion with 
the national church of Scotland, and they were recognized by 
the Dutch government. Church buildings were granted to 
them by the magistrates. They had one at Ley den while 
Robinson w^as there, and Mr. Sumner found a minute account 
of it in the old Leyden records while seeking for information 
about Robinson's church. These Scotch churches and the 
Brownists had no dealings. The references of Cardinal 
Bentivoglio — mistaken by Young — and other continental 
Avriters to the '^ I'uritans " in Holland, are to the Scotch. Mr. 
Sumner says that some of these references at first misled him 
and started him on a wrony; trail. In Bradford's Dialogues 
by Young, we are informed that "■ those in Holland reproached 
as Puritans were entirely distinct from those reproached as 
Brownists." The " Puritans " were theScotch. 

Let us return to the alleged honors paid to Roi)inson by the 
people of Leyden. 

As has already been stated, there is no mention made of 
these in any of the letters which were written from Leyden 
to Plymouth on the occasion of Robinson's death. Positive 
proof to the contrary has been furnished by Mr. Sumner; 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 55 

for he succeeded in linding in the records of Peter's church 
the receipt of the payment of Robinson's burial expenses. 
The receipt is dated the 10th of March, 1625, and the amount 
is nine florins, equal to three dollars and sixty cents, being the 
very lowest sum paid for the humblest interment among the 
very poorest classes of the people. In this class of interments 
the bodies were removed every seven years to make room for 
others. 

The famous " fast sermon," said to have been preached by 
Robinson, now appears to have been a forgery by Governor 
Winslow. 

In 1646 many of the inhabitants of New England com- 
plained by petition to Parliament of the . oppression of the 
local government. They represented that they were fined, 
imprisoned and persecuted on account of their dissent from 
the Pilgrims' religion. For the same cause also they allefe;ed 
that they were disfranchised and not allowed to vote for civil 
or military ofiicers. 

Governor Winslow was sent to England to defend the home 
government against these charges. And it was while he was 
in London that he manufactured this sermon, to show what a 
spirit of Christian liberty had actuated the original colonists. 
A paper printed at London, 1647, by Major John Child, 
exposes the misrepresentations that Winslow was guilty of in 
endeavoring to make it appear to the English government 
that freedom of religious worship was allowed in the colony. 
Young says that in Winslow's Brief Narration, " we have 
the original of Robinson's celebrated farewell address to the 
Pilgrims at Leyden, and several facts relating to them not 
recorded elsewhere.'''' 

This Briel Narration was published in London in 1646, and 
is as unscrupulous a piece of special pleading as can anywhere 
be seen. The object of it was to show that the colonial gov- 
ernment was liberal in character and that the charges brought 
against it were false. But Major Child has convicted Win- 
slow of falsehood beyond all doubt, l)y his reference to official 
documents and laws. 



56 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

Judge Davis remarks, in speaking of this famous sermon 
as given by Winslow : " It is difficult to explain why thid 
excellent advice was not preserved in the Memorial, or copied 
into the church records.'^ 

Mr. Sumner asks : " Was the sermon ever preached by 
Robinson ? " 

He does not believe it was, for he says : ''The only authority 
which can be found for it is Winslow, and he gives in an in- 
formal manner, twenty-six yeurs after the time when the 
discourse is supposed to have been pronounced, that which 
forms the ground-work of the sermon in Mather, Neal, and 
others. Had Winslow taken notes of this discourse at the 
time, one may well be surprised with the learned Judge Davis 
that ' its excellent advice was not copied, as were m;»ny other 
documents of less interest, into the church records. He had 
taken no notes,.his memory must have been of a superior 
order to enable him to write out a discourse which he had 
listened to twenty-six years before." Mr. Sumner's paper is 
published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society for 1846. 

Kobinson was the father of the Pilgrims. It was he that 
gathered into a fold the scattered remnants of the Brownists 
in Holland after the dissolution of their congregations. It was 
under bis presiding genius that the emigration was projected 
and carried into effect. Up to his death, tli • Plymouth Pil- 
grims looked upon him as their pastor and expected him to 
join them in their new^ home. Ingratitude may permit the 
memory of the founder Brown to sleep in unmerited oblivion, 
but Robinson will not be forgotten. So long as a printing- 
press remains in New England and until public speaking 
becomes a lost art, Robinson will continue to be plus Eneas 
and his labors, dam condidit iirhefn, be among the noblest 
themes of profitable and patriotic ardor. 

A few additional reminiscences of his life and character, 
not hitherto dwelt upon at much length, and which certainly 
are not generally known to the reading world, will not, there- 
fore, be inappropriate in this connection. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 57 

The first event in Robinson's life worthy of notice is his 
application for the mastership of the hospital at Norwich, 
He failed to obtain the appointment, whereupon he separated 
himself from the Church of England, denounced it to the 
extent of his vocabulary, and began a new career as a Brown- 
ist. These are the facts. Of his motives we can only judge 
by the ordinary laws of experience in human conduct. Judged 
by these laws, the evidence is prima facie against him ; and 
Bishop Hall does not hesitate to assert that his failure here 
was the reason why he became a Brownist. 

We have already seen what the principles of the Brown- 
ists were, Kobinson's life is harmonious if we assume that 
he adopted these principles, and acted upon them to their 
fullest extent. 

In the year 1602 he and one Richard Clyfton organized a 
Brownist congregation near the confines of the counties of 
York, Notingham and Lincoln. He operated actively in 
England for six years, when he was compelled to fly the 
country for his revolutionary agitation. 

Neal, in his History of New England, says of Robinson 
that " when he first came to Holland he was a rigid Brown- 
ist." And this is the evidence of all the contemporary wri- 
ters who have treated on the subject. But this evidence is 
not necessary to prove the fact. Robinson's own writings at 
this period are in themselves the most convincing proofs that 
can be brought forward. 

Robinson was a fair scholar, well read in the technical the- 
ology of his day, a good logician, and an able controversialist. 
And he knew how to avail himself of all his qualifications. 
For fifteen years he made war upon the Church of England 
with all the bitterness of personal resentment. No argument 
which could possibly be advanced in favor of the claims of 
this church had he overlooked. He refuted them, all and 
singular; at least, he undertook to do it, and, in the eyes of 
his disciples, he succeeded. He not only refuted, but he 
attacked. The Church of England was an abortion of the 



58 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES; OR, 

great whore of Babylon that sat upon the seven hills of 
Rome, and accursed was every one who partook of her forni- 
cation ! The Brownist church alone was the true church of 
the living God ; this was the temple on earth in which the 
Most High dwelt ; in this church every knee should bow, 
and to this church kings and princes must submit. Here was 
an ambition of no common kind ; but au ambition which 
could not be realized in fact. 

After fifteen years' experience it would seem that Robinson 
began to consider the question whether his career as a Brown- 
ist had not been a failure. The more he reflected, it seems, 
upon this subject, the more open he became to conviction. 
Arguments in favor of the Church of England which he had 
heretofore annihilated were reconsidered, and he now per- 
ceived a cogency , in them which had entirely escaped his 
attention. In a word, Robinson became convinced of the 
error of his way, and Doctor Ames, whom Robinson had 
formerly ridiculed as " Doctor Amiss," became the honored 
instrument of his conversion. 

The condition of the Brownists in Holland was, as has been 
stated, one of extreme poverty. But they had been no better 
oif in England. Tbey had been recruited from the large class 
of unemployed and discontented population which was 
already beginning to be a dangerous element in that king- 
dom. Of all the Brownists who removed to Holland, Brews- 
ter and Bradford seem to have been the only two who were 
possessed of any independent means of support. 

Dr. Ames was an English Puritan resident in Holland, and 
had been elected to a theological chair in Franeaker, in 
Friesland. This was a marked honor to a stranger. Now, 
Robinson had l)een residing at Leyden for six years and no 
notice whatever had been taken of him. And besides, he 
was very poor. 

Hubbard, in his G-eneral History of New England, states 
the facts of Robinson's conversion as follows, viz: 

" After the Doctor (Ames) had taken him (Robinson) to 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 59 

task and showed him his great mistake in his unanswerable 
piece called a 'Manuduction to Mr. Robinson,' and finding him- 
self unable to grapple any longer with so great a master of 
reason, he submitted, and not being willing to speak anything 
against the truth, that had been by the help of an antagonist 
discovered unto him. Yea, further, he came afterwards to 
acknowledge and in a judicious and godly discourse to approve 
and defend the lawful liberty, if not the duty, in case of 
hearing the godly preachers of the Church of England. Thus 
like Paul he preached that which with his pen he had perse- 
cuted before." 

Baillie says that Robinson recanted. 

Robinson's great Brownisfc work was his Justification of 
Separation. In 1614, he published a work entitled " Reli- 
gious Communion," in which he revokes what he had said in 
the " Justification," etc. ; and so it was understood at the 
time, as fully appears by the controversy between Paget and 
Ainsworth. Robinson more clearly defined his position in a 
paper entitled " Manumission to a Manuduction," published 
in 1615. 

The first fruits which accrued to Robinson, after his con- 
version, (and indeed in the year 1615,) was half a ton of 
beer and ten gallons of wine a quarter, which must have been 
a great boon to him in his straightened circumstances. He 
•enjoyed this bounty as a privilege of the university at Ley- 
den, to which he w^as admitted after his conversion. 

Robinson, having purged himself ot the odium of Brown- 
ism, began now to take an active part in the politics of 
Holland, the part of religious bigotry and military despotism 
against freedom of conscience and constitutional liberty. 

The bitter contest betw^een Maurice and Barneveldt was 
now at its height, Maurice had long been secretly plotting 
to subvert the liberties of the States and to seize upon the 
supreme power. To accomplish his purpo.se, he desired a 
continuation of the war with Spain. The cause of constitu- 
tional liberty demanded peace, and Barneveldt, the advocate- 



60 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YAJSIKEES; OR, 

general, had thwarted the pkiiis of Maurice by concluding a 
truce for twelve years, Maurice became aware that his secret 
ambition was discovered, and he now began that unrelenting 
war upon Barneveldt which only ended with the death of 
the aged patriot on the scaffold. Maurice was a great and 
successful military chieftain, and the populace, dazzled by his 
glory, were ready to grant anything he might demand. 
Maurice threw himself into the arms of this faction. Barne- 
veldt appealed calmly to the friends of the constitution. Th« 
jSTetherlands was a confederacy of independent States. Mau- 
rice desired to consolidate these under a single central gov- 
ernment, of which he should be the head. Barneveldt, on 
the other hand, was putting forth his last etlbrts in the attempt 
to save the constitution of the confederacy, and to preserve 
intact^ie rights of the individual States. Barneveldt and 
Grotius were Armenians. Maurice took up the cause of the 
Gomarists. ile kindled afresh the fires of religious bigotry 
and fanaticism. The creatures of Maurice organized mobs 
in the principal cities. They erected barricades. They pillaged 
the houses and outraged the persons of the Armenians. The 
most virtuous matron of this persuasion was not safe at their 
hands when the cry of " Armenian harlot " was raised against 
her on the streets. Slanders rained upon Barneveldt. The 
vilest pamphlets against him flooded the public marts. Ba"!*- 
neveldt favored religious toleration. Maurice did not. The 
Gomarists were in the majority, and to their cupidity Maurice 
appealed. With the Armenians banished, the wealth of 
the church would be in their hands. To accomplish the 
destruction of the Armenians and thereby to further his own 
ambitious designs, Maurice called the Synod of Dort. It 
assembled and it did Maurice's work. The Armenians 
were condemned. The States, under the influence of 
Maurice, confirmed the decrees of the synod, and the 
work of spoliation, banishment, and death began. The 
Armenian professors at Leyden were marched into banish- 
ment under an armed guard. More than two hundred Arme- 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 61 

nian clergymen were turned out of their livings. Grotius 
was condemned to imprisonment for life, and in May^ 1619, 
the aged and virtuous Barneveldt, Holland's greatest states- 
man, expired on the scaffold, a martyr to the cause of consti- 
tutional government. 

And among the inferior class of creatures employed to 
hound Barneveldt to the death was John Robinson. 

Eobinson had been a constant attendant at the University 
to hear the lectures against the Armenians. He had taken 
an active part in speaking against them in public. All the 
early chroniclers agree in describing him as "terrible to the 
Armenians," and Hoornbeek, a native writer, confirms it. 

Mr. George Sumner says : '' It is to be lamented that in 
these discussions Eobinson is found taking the part of the 
bigots. There are few, I think, among the sons of the 
Pilgrims who would not wish to find him ranged with the 
friends rather than with the persecutors and final butchers of 
the wise, the just, the generous Barneveldt." 

Robinson doubtless expected some substantial reward for 
his services against the Armenians. It is not improbable 
that it was the hope of the reward that prevented him joining 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Bishop Hall said of him that 
"he was a thorough -going Brownist." And we know how 
Brown would have conducted himself under similar circum- 
stances. Robinson became a Brownist out of spite and aban- 
doned his pretended religious convictions on commercial 
grounds. It is true that wc cannot fathom the motives of any 
man. But we judge of these from external conduct accord- 
ing to rules which universal human experience has pronoun- 
ced just and which are every day acted upon in all criminal 
courts throughout the world in matters of life and death. 
Let Robinson be judged by these rules and we will be content 
with the verdict. 

After the banishment of the Armenians, there were vacan- 
cies at the universities to be filled, and the places of two 
hundred deposed clergymen were to be supplied. Is there 



62 THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE YANKEES. 

anything in Eobinson's career which forbids us to suppose 
that he looked forward to a share of the spoils for himself ? 
But he was disappointed. He crept back into his former 
obscurity unrecognized and unrewarded. He was now grow, 
ing prematurely old, and he had doubtless discovered for 
himself, that his life had been a mistake and a failure. The 
few meagre accounts of his last five years convey the impres- 
sion that a cloud of gloom had settled fatally upon him. Let 
us hope that repentance and peace came at last. He survived 
Barneveldt six years, and died in extreme poverty at Leyden, 
in March, 1625. 



THB END. 



